Lot 3: Melton Prior (British, 1845-1910) Boers on the trek unframed, within a volume of A. Conan Doyle, The Great Boer War, (Smith, Elder & Co, London, 1900)

Boers on the trek
signed 'Melton Prior' (lower left) and inscribed 'Boers on the trek' (lower right)
watercolour en grisaille
20.3 x 34.3cm (8 x 13 1/2in).
unframed, within a volume of A. Conan Doyle, The Great Boer War, (Smith, Elder & Co, London, 1900)

Melton Prior was the most important artist to depict the Boer War. Working for The Illustrated London News, he sent a large number of drawings back for publication, most notably those smuggled out from the siege of Ladysmith.

The present lot bears strong similarities to the drawing The Exodus from Pretoria in the Museum Africa collection, Johannesburg (Africana Museum cat no. P272).

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
R. F. Kennedy, Catalogue of Pictures in the Africana Museum, (Johannesburg, 1968)