Digital George Stow
Image: STOW_050
Institution : Iziko (no number assigned)
Size : 1017mmx678mm
Description : Fifteen figures of mixed description: six bear weaponry (sticks, quivers, bow), nine wear cloaks or karosses and five appear to have animal-eared heads. Nine antelope of mixed type. Three parallel rows of dots on the left side of the painting in the middle. "From the Great Cave on the Banks of the Nciba [illegible] near the [illegible]" [Two joined halves.]
Verso : "32" (duplicate number)
Description in published source : "PLATE 6 LOCALITY.- As Plate 3 [no.28]. SITE.- As Plate 3 [no.28]. DESCRIPTION.- This picture contains three separate groups from different parts of the cave. On a small slab are the pretty little bucks, greatly faded but still beautiful. Some one has daubed over part of them. The vulture-headed women are just visible on another panel. I think there is a brick-red figure superimposed on the group, but everything is too faded to be certain. Most of the heads have gone. The group of elands is in another part of the cave. It is correct, and so is the line of men with karosses and quivers. Facing the upper elands are the remains of a large yellow animal on which the two black men are superimposed. The lower left eland has superimposed on it one of a group of women dancing, a lower line of those shown in Plate 7. I think this whole group, including the yellow eland opposite it, is superimposed on an old dark-red snake. This would give six layers of paintings, or seven if we count the dots as a layer. It is rare for so many layers to be visible, particularly when there is white in the lower ones; therefore it seems possible to me that the three topmost elands are the work of one artist, purposely painted one over the other as a group painting. EXPLANATION.- Stow wrote, 'This group of bucks is the most beautiful I have yet seen of Bushmen art: but still these copies do not equal the originals in the flowing smoothness of outline and the softness of the shading. The head to the right centre looked like a beautiful little enamel painting- To the left, dance of men with their quivers slung over their shoulders- To the right, dance of women dressed in karosses and decorated with birdsheads and feathers…' The bird-headed women may request a dance, or they may be an illustration of a Bushman fable,
Published : "Rock Paintings in SA" plate 6 [see also no 32, Cave artists plate 6]
Locality : Neiba River; Longreach, Lower Black Kei River
Size : 1017mmx678mm
Description : Fifteen figures of mixed description: six bear weaponry (sticks, quivers, bow), nine wear cloaks or karosses and five appear to have animal-eared heads. Nine antelope of mixed type. Three parallel rows of dots on the left side of the painting in the middle. "From the Great Cave on the Banks of the Nciba [illegible] near the [illegible]" [Two joined halves.]
Verso : "32" (duplicate number)
Description in published source : "PLATE 6 LOCALITY.- As Plate 3 [no.28]. SITE.- As Plate 3 [no.28]. DESCRIPTION.- This picture contains three separate groups from different parts of the cave. On a small slab are the pretty little bucks, greatly faded but still beautiful. Some one has daubed over part of them. The vulture-headed women are just visible on another panel. I think there is a brick-red figure superimposed on the group, but everything is too faded to be certain. Most of the heads have gone. The group of elands is in another part of the cave. It is correct, and so is the line of men with karosses and quivers. Facing the upper elands are the remains of a large yellow animal on which the two black men are superimposed. The lower left eland has superimposed on it one of a group of women dancing, a lower line of those shown in Plate 7. I think this whole group, including the yellow eland opposite it, is superimposed on an old dark-red snake. This would give six layers of paintings, or seven if we count the dots as a layer. It is rare for so many layers to be visible, particularly when there is white in the lower ones; therefore it seems possible to me that the three topmost elands are the work of one artist, purposely painted one over the other as a group painting. EXPLANATION.- Stow wrote, 'This group of bucks is the most beautiful I have yet seen of Bushmen art: but still these copies do not equal the originals in the flowing smoothness of outline and the softness of the shading. The head to the right centre looked like a beautiful little enamel painting- To the left, dance of men with their quivers slung over their shoulders- To the right, dance of women dressed in karosses and decorated with birdsheads and feathers…' The bird-headed women may request a dance, or they may be an illustration of a Bushman fable,
Published : "Rock Paintings in SA" plate 6 [see also no 32, Cave artists plate 6]
Locality : Neiba River; Longreach, Lower Black Kei River
