William Fehr’s collection is different from other South African art collections. Perhaps as it is the collection most seen by the public? And it is paintings and decorative arts that give a glimpse of what part of the country was like in the 1700s and 1800s, albeit from a colonial perspective.

As Kate Crane Briggs’ intern, I was lucky enough to join the curator’s tour of The William Fehr Collection. I had seen some of the art before, but knew little of the man who had so painstakingly collected it.

The largest and best known part of the collection is the oil paintings and decorative art on display in the Iziko spaces at the Castle of Good Hope. There is a small selection of the watercolours on show at Iziko’s Rust en Vreugd.It is easy to see both, as we did on the tour, as they are in City Bowl and open to the public, with a small admission charge.

Our tour was led by Esther Esmyol who is the custodian of this collection. In 1986 Esther started working at the former South African Cultural History Museum, now incorporated into the Iziko Museums of South Africa.

Images – John Thomas Baines’ Cape Town from Woodstock beach c.1847; former intern Annabel talking with Esther at the Castle of Good Hope, Cape Town, February 2025 – some of the Fehr collection is on display in the Kat building, Governor’s House, in the background || Portrait of William Fehr (photographer and date unknown but could be same time as the last family picture taken c.1928, when William was aged 28) and detail of Thomas Baines’ Attack on Maqoma’s stronghold at Fuller’s Hoek in October 1851, images from Show Me Cape Town. Sir Charles D’Oyly’s Fetching water from the pump at the top of the Heerengracht, 1833; Cape washerwoman going home, undated watercolour by William Howard Schroder

Businessman and extremely keen art enthusiast, Fehr spent decades of his life buying art and artefacts relating to Cape Town’s history. His collection is unparalleled.

So who was he? Fehr was born in Burgersdorp in the Cape Colony (now the Eastern Cape) in 1892 to Carl and Maria Fehr, a German-South African family. The Fehrs travelled between Germany and South African until 1914 when WWI broke out.

When Fehr was 22 years old he moved to London to follow in his father’s footsteps. William Fehr returned to the Cape with his family in 1915 – just after the start of WW1 (1914 – 1918).

Fehr worked at Messrs Malcolmess & Co Ltd in East London. He was a salesman in the hardware dept, then, to mid-1918, their line traveller, selling ‘rough goods’ (I’m unsure what these were).

Around this time, Fehr stopped using his middle name, Adolf, downplaying his German heritage.

Moving back to Cape Town, Fehr in 1918 joined the South African Nectar Tea Co. Ltd. First he was a General Assistant, then Managing Director.  Later Fehr became Head of the Jute Dept (a sideways move?). His father, Carl Fehr, was a director of Fehr, Gow & Co, Cape Town.  It was an import and export business (for example selling agricultural machinery and products). Fehr in time became a Managing Director; his duties included writing correspondence and keeping the books.

In 1931 Fehr married reputed beauty Henriette (‘Jetty’) Nankin. She was from Paarl, the prosperous small agricultural town near Stellenbosch. In 1932 their only child, Vivienne, was born. Their family home was in Kenilworth, in Cape Town’s southern suburbs. Their house, pictured below, was called Aboyne, the name of a village in Scotland, UK. (A quick search online leads me to think the house is still in existence but much renovated).

Vivienne Elzinga, now in her 90s, lives in Durbanville. Esther Esmyol knows Vivienne (and her family) through her work curating and caring for the Fehr collection, now part of the Iziko Museums of South Africa. Vivienne gave Esther her beloved two dogs, Daisy and Jackie when she moved into to a retirement home.

Images – paintings from the Iziko’s William Fehr Collection: Table Bay Samuel Scott c. 1730; Panoramic view of Cape Town from the roof of the Lutheran Church, Strand Street by Lieutenant Walter Stanhope Sherwill 1849 || Sepia images from the William Fehr Family Archives – William and Henriette Fehr; Vivienne Fehr (now Elzinga) at Aboyne, Kenilworth and an interior of Aboyne with oil painting by Thomas Baines depicting the arrival of the British settlers and William by his car – location unknown, perhaps Table Mountain’s Chapman Peak or Baines Kloof

Fehr began his art collection as early as the late 1920s. His early acquisitions were paintings and works on paper, typically showing Cape/South African topographical views, historical events, people, places, buildings, fauna and flora. Being in business, many of the scenes also depicted commercial activities. Western and Eastern Cape, as they are known today, feature prominently – places where his family roots lay.

In time Fehr also bought furniture, ceramics and historical artefacts. He wanted to bring back so-called Africana art from overseas. This was to ‘fill gaps’ in what he saw as a cohesive image of South African history. He was described as having a ‘missionary-like zeal’ to complete the collection. He was even known to search for and buy items within the pictures, like the pair of slave shackles currently on display at the Castle.

Fehr met with a couple of friends, Dr Walter Purcell and Alfred Gordon-Brown, most weeks for lunch in central Cape Town. They were nicknamed the Stuttafords Scouts, as I think they had lunch at this smart department store on Adderley Street (some called this at the time, Cape Town’s Oxford Street – the still famous shopping street in London). After lunch, they went to Long Street shops and the market on Grand Parade to seek out treasures to buy – some might say antiques, others bric-a-brac (or even junk).

Mostly 18^th/19^th century art was purchased. Fehr did collect contemporary art. However, he wasn’t interested in painters who had new, modern styles at the time, such as Irma Stern (1894 – 1966) and Vladimir Tretchikoff (1913 – 2006). These artists lived and worked in Cape Town so he probably met them. Their work now sells for millions. Fehr was interested in contemporary art like the two fired clay figurines carrying pottery vessels below by Samuele Makoanyane (1909 – 1944). These were made when Makoanyane lived in Lesotho in the 1930s.

At that time there was a distinct lack of systematic collecting of art and decorative arts in South Africa.

Of course, Fehr’s world-view was distinctly European. There has been some argument about the appropriateness of celebrating this perspective in light of the current political context. Esther, through her role as curator, has tried to address this by highlighting the gaps in Fehr’s ‘cohesive history’ in the display at the Castle.

Fehr’s love for history and art is not only evident in his collection, but also in his personal efforts to preserve South Africa’s heritage. After 20 years of campaigning as member of the Historical Monuments Commission, he was successful in getting the old Cape Malay quarter (now called the Bo-Kaap) recognised as a National Monument.

In 1952, he loaned his art collection to the Castle of Good Hope to celebrate the Van Riebeeck Tercentenary Festival. He laid out the collection exactly as it was in his house, which looked slightly odd in a museum setting. (The collection stayed like this until 2015; when it was changed there were complaints, especially by tourist guides used to the old style!)

The University of Cape Town gave Fehr an honorary doctorate of law in 1963.

To quote Karl Koperski’s doctoral thesis on Fehr, published in 2010:

Fehr wished … to improve the quality of life by focusing on the shared heritage, presenting a view of culture which embraced the complexities and rewards of commerce, social endeavour and the family. He did not build up the Collection through motives of financial gain, personal fame or political favour. For him, rather, it was a matter of personal contact with the land and its people.

In 1964 the South African Government purchased the collection, by then including 3 000 pieces, for R300 000. Apparently, Fehr was quite bereft afterwards, his life’s work having been sold; Aboyne felt empty. He died shortly after, in 1968.

Though Fehr wrote these words about Thomas Bowler, they are as easily applied to himself:

One who gave so much of himself to create a love for, and appreciation of, art and thus helped to stimulate cultural activities of the community.

Written by Annabel Moore, August 2023

Updated by Kate Crane Briggs, March 2025

Huge thanks to Esther Esmyol for her tour, interview and help afterwards with this blog including providing images from Iziko Museums of South Africa, William Fehr Collection

Bibliography

Koperski, Karl, William Fehr (1892-1968) and his contribution to the study of South African history and culture, Stellenbosch University, 2000

Esmyol, Esther, Interviewed by Annabel Moore, 25 July 2023, Who was William Fehr

Anonymous, Dr William Fehr (1892-1968), collector of art as history, South African History Online, accessed 10 August 2023

Let me know if you would like a tour of the exhibitions at the Castle and Rust en Vreugd.

Feedback  very welcome: kate@cultureconnectsa.com

Images: Wilhelm Langschmidt’s Long Street in 1845; Castle of Good Hope with Esther’s carefully curated selection of Fehr’s collection – Samuele Makoanyane’s figurines and the various portraits; second two images: Rust en Vreugd

Further info

Dr William Fehr (1892-1968), collector of art as history published 2011 and updated 2018 – I found interesting Fehr’s ancestors’ strong links with trade both on his maternal and paternal side.

John Thomas Baines (1820-1875) – Cape Town from Woodstock beach, oil on canvas, c.1847,  the Castle of Good Hope and the town are shown in the distance. The group of buildings in the middle distance is the Military Hospital. The derelict brick structures in the foreground were probably part of the French fortification linking the Castle to Fort Knokke, to the right, outside this picture. The conical brick tower on the left was either a kiln (lime or brick), or some form of armament furnace. The area around the kiln may represent the brickfield called the Brickery, originally part of the Zonnebloem estate and now a factory on Newmarket Street.

Wilhelm Heinrich Franz Ludwig Langschmidt’s (1805-1866) stiff but accurate style he provided us with another precious record of a mid-19th century streetscape, this time Long Street in Cape Town, 1845. When looking across Long Street into Pepper Street, note St Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in the distance, below Devil’s Peak. The Reverend Leopold Marquard is believed to be the man sitting on the stoep in front of the house on the left. Although we do not know their names, the street is filled with people, such as a vendor carrying fruit baskets, a water carrier, Muslim women dressed in coloured skirts and embroidered scarfs, as well as a man with an umbrella wearing pointed shoes – a testimony to Cape Town’s cosmopolitan society and former enslaved people.

Sir Charles D’Oyly (1781–1845) Fetching water from the pump at the top of the Heerengracht (present day Adderley Street), Cape Town, 1833, before slave emancipation.

Africana is a word I’d never come across it before moving to South Africa in 2010. Dictionary.com:

1. Artifacts or artistic or literary works of any of the nations of Africa reflecting geographical, historical, or cultural development
2. A collection of materials, as books and documents, on African history or culture

Brenthurst Collection in Johannesburg has similar works to Fehr’s paintings, especially with respect to Baines’ art. It is not open to the public, but appointments can be made to visit.

The former Africana Museum (now MuseumAfrica), run by the City of Johannesburg, has significant Africana artworks. Phoning in advance of your visit is recommended.