About this Item
50 x 40cm and in very good condition. In the original dark wooden oak frame and mount which will not be sent overseas. This photograph matches the negative purchased by the Cape Archive in 1938. It was featured as the title photograph of the Eastern Districts section on page 197 of A Cape Camera by Arthur Elliott and Hans Fransen, the best book on the Elliott archive. The provenance of this photograph is interesting. The little boy featured in the photograph is Donovan Montgomery , the son of the local Swellendam jailer, aged about five. It was given by Donovan's widow in 1969 to Orson Toombs, later the owner of Kronendal, a Cape Dutch original farmstead in Hout Bay. He died in 2021 and this was purchased from his estate collection. The Drostdy Museum building remains intact to this day, and was one of a minority of classic Cape Dutch buildings to be saved. It was built by the Dutch East India Company in 1747 to serve as residence and official headquarters for the Landdrost. Soon after a gaol, a house for the secretary, a mill and various outbuildings were erected around this main building. The first Landdrost to be appointed to this district was Johannes Theophilus Rhenius and he was assisted by a board of burger heemraden and subordinates like a secretary and a gaoler as well as many slaves. From 1827 the Drostdy was occupied by the British civil commissioner who, with the resident magistrate, replaced the board of Landdrost and heemraden when they were abolished by the British colonial government. In 1846 the colonial government sold the Drostdy and the land around it was subdivided. In 1855 the former Drostdy was bought by the Steyn family and it remained in the hands of this family until 1939 when it was bought by the government of the Union of South Africa for the purpose of establishing a museum. Seller Inventory # 80409
