Lady Anne Bernard's Watercolours & Sketches. Glimpses of the Cape of Good Hope

Book title: Lady Anne Bernard's Watercolours & Sketches
Subtitle: Glimpses of the Cape of Good
Author: Nicolas Barker
Type: Biography
Imprint: Fernwood Press
Publisher: Random House Struik
Limited Edition: 1000 copies
Cape Town, South Africa 2009
ISBN 9781874950882 / ISBN 978-1-874950-88-2
Hardcover, dustjacket, 31x28 cm, 116 pages, throughout photographs and illustrations

Description:

Lady Anne's watercolours, including her wonderful panorama of Cape Town (in 7 panels) painted from the roof of the Castle, published here for the first time in full colour, encapsulate her enthusiasm for and delight in her new home at the Cape of Good Hope. Having accompanied her husband, Andrew Barnard, the first Colonial Secretary under the new British administration, she decided to make a record of the people she met and places she saw for her friends and family at home. In this way she created a vivid and fascinating picture of the local inhabitants, architecture, landscape and natural history of the Cape during the last years of the 18th century.

Lady Anne Barnard (1750–1825), daughter of James Lindsay, the 5th Earl of Balcarres, was a significant member of British society. Married to Andrew Barnard she accompanied him to the Cape in 1797 where he had been appointed first Colonial Secretary under the new British administration. The Barnards were entirely happy, both in their official life at the Castle and in the cottage called ‘Paradise’ in the Newlands forest to which they could escape. They explored the Cape and made friends with the Cape Dutch as well as their British colleagues. Lady Anne Barnard was an accomplished artist, recording landscapes and figures with equal skill.

She decided to create a record of the people she met and places she saw for her friends and family in England, in this way creating a vivid and fascinating picture of the local inhabitants, architecture, landscape and natural history of the Cape during the last years of the 18th century. Her diaries are pictures in words, and her drawings an equally lively commentary on the events of her life. In May 1798 the Barnards embarked on an adventurous journey upcountry: her magnificent record of this journey is also featured in this book.