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cover imagechintz, c.1750 metropolitan museum of art

Photographs by carina BeyerDesign by Bianca Packham

© iziko museums of South africa

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LenDerS to the exhiBition

InstitutionsCollection of the Parliament of South AfricaLibrary of the Parliament of South AfricaGroote Schuur EstateDepartment of Public Works Iziko Art CollectionsIziko Social History CollectionsIziko Marine Archaeology CollectionsIziko Archaeology Collections

Individuals and Private CollectionsManina Baumann CollectionMichael ChandlerDoreen and Uno De Waal: IN AWE STAYS Collection Goodman GalleryMadame Marthe Hins Collection Kunyalala NdlovuHans Niehaus CollectionEllalou O’MaeraDominic Touwen

All the objects and ideas on this exhibi-tion have somehow over time arrived in Cape Town from the far away shores of the Indian Ocean and its network.

We acknowledge the contributions of many unknown and unrecorded generations of diverse travellers, work-ers – both free and bonded – notables and ordinary people who brought a rich

tangible and intangible history to our land. The reach of this mix and its de-sign implications extends beyond Cape Town – the city. Together with our Af-rican roots it has shaped a new South African aesthetic: Cape Town World Design Capital 2014.

Thank you to all the generous lenders and collaborators for your contributions.

Acknowledgments

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Michael Chandler (1985 -)

Untitled, 2014

Pastel on paper

on loan from Doreen

and Uno De Waal

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SPeciaL thankS to:

Andrea Lewis and Hayden Proud for contributions from their collections.Esther Esmyol: Curator and specialist consultant to the exhibitionIziko Social History CollectionsJoline Young: Independent historical adviser and editorJohan Jansen and team: Mural artNkosinathi Gumede, Enoch Bangeni, Angela Zehnder: Collections and Conservation Iziko Art CollectionsWilliam Visagie: Installation and Workshop- Iziko Art CollectionsIziko Social History Collections and Conservation Departments:Bradley Mottie, Janine van Wyk, Thando Ngcangisa, Hendrina Brandt, Fatima February, Gerald Klinghardt, Wieke van Delen, Lailah Hisham, Tessa Davids

aDDitionaL inStaLLation aSSiStance anD exPertiSe:

Derek Ohland, Brian Pedro, Noel Fouten, Glen FoutenIziko Natural HistoryCarol Kaufmann, Joline Young, Thea Ferreira: Research and writing Shameem Adams: Administrative assistance

internS:

Thea Ferreira: Candidate UCT BA (Hons) in Curatorship Bianca Packham: Candidate UCT BA (Hons) in Curatorship

No exhibition can be realised without the willing assistance of many focussed individuals. It is my pleasure to acknowledge those who helped me with Patterns of Contact.

Curatorial Team

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A special note of thank is due to my esteemed and helpful colleagues from the Collections of Parliament: Lila Komnick and Nigel Scholtz; and from the Groote Schuur Estate Collection, DPW: Dr Rayda Becker for entrusting us with national treasures to be viewed for the first time in a public museum.

Thank you all.

Carol KaufmannCurator Iziko Art Collections

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This exhibition celebrates the influence of the Indian Ocean World on our visual cul-ture.

The Indian Ocean forms part of a world of exploration and trade that has character-ised the area and its peripheries for over five thousand years. As such it formed an axis of multi-cultural contact for people of the Old World of antiquity connecting the Mediter-ranean, the Arabian Peninsula, Persia and the East African Coast with India, China and Southeast Asia. In this way explorers, travellers, sailors and merchants on a quest for fortune or new knowledge, established commercial, religious and intellectual net-works amongst themselves and with the coastal communities. This occurred long before such networks were formed amongst the inhabitants of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Southern Africa situated just south of the monsoon winds and South Eastern Zim-babwe, halfway between Europe and Asia, was well placed to participate in early glob-al networks. Archaeological evidence links the empires of the Limpopo Valley in the North-eastern region of South Africa with Arab traders active in the region over a thousand years ago.

The Old and New Worlds were connect-ed through voyages of discovery that began in the late 1500’s. With the formation of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in 1602, regular trading voyages to India and Bata-via commenced around the Cape of Good Hope. In 1652 the foundation was laid for

the emergence of a vibrant – and brutal – new cosmopolitan society that would impact hugely on the southern tip of Africa – Cape Town.

More than just commodities to be traded, the works you see here – all selected for their special connection with the Indian Ocean World – were sources of cultural knowledge and identity as well as inspiration for creativ-ity and ingenuity. Together with African and European roots this rich mix has contribut-ed to the creation of an exciting and fresh post-colonial visual culture in South Africa, globally sought-after for its unique style.

Most of the works displayed here are drawn from the Iziko Permanent Collec-tions. We are also indebted to the Parliament of South Africa and The Department of Public Works ( Groote Schuur) for giving us this opportunity to showcase these rare and little-known works from their collections in celebration of Cape Town being honoured as World Design Capital of 2014.

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installation view of

Patterns of Contact: Designs

from the Indian Ocean World

Introduction

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Between 1652 and 1838 some 60 000 people were brought to the Cape as slaves during the period of Dutch co-lonial rule (1652 to 1795) and British colonial rule (1795 to 1838). They came from diverse origins spanning South Asia, Southeast Asia, Madagascar and Mozambique. Their offspring were born here and known as Cape born slaves.

The experiences of enslaved people at the Cape depended largely on wheth-er they were owned by slaveholders who were kind or cruel. Overall, their lives were racked by uncertainty. They were controlled through the threat of vio-lence and / or being sold apart from members of their families.

Slavery was a cruel existence because slaveholders used human beings as their chattels and refused to acknowl-edge their humanity. It was an existence where psychological reminders of slave status were entrenched into every as-pect of their existence. Fear and defer-ence for members of the slaveholding class were brutally embedded into the psyches of people who were slaves at the Cape. Punishments were extremely cruel, in many cases resulting in death.

However, the people who were enslaved in Cape Town formed the

backbone of the economy for both the Dutch and British colonial govern-ments. Without slave labour the econo-my at the Cape would not have thrived. Today the influence and contribution of many highly skilled enslaved people in Cape Town echoes through its archi-tecture, fine antique furniture, costume and cuisine. Aromas of the East and Africa still fill the streets of Cape Town through exotic dishes that have travelled through time from a Cape slave past.

Through this exhibition we acknowl-edge the contribution of the thousands of voiceless people who were brought to the Cape as slaves and from whose labour this city was built. It is this leg-acy of slavery that makes Cape Town unique in South Africa.

Cape Town – the slave connection

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Irma Stern 1894-1966

The golden shawl

oil on canvas

Dated by the artist 1945

57/33

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Left

James Ford

Holiday Time in Cape Town in the

20th Century in Honour of the

Expected Arrival of the Governor-

General of UNITED South Africa,

1891-1899

oil on canvas

78/185:L

on loan : from Dr rJv milner in

memory of mr rJ verster,mayor

of cape town 1922-1925

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Cape Town is a place of captivating beauty that is home to a variety of people from diverse origins, cultures and religions. Once the exclusive home of the indigenous San and Khoi peo-ple, through colonisation and the slave trade the last three centuries have seen Cape Town become one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world. Under the domination of the Dutch East India Company (1602-1795) the settlement

at the Cape of Good Hope became connected with not only Indian, Chi-nese, Southeast Asian, Japanese and Sri Lankan (Ceylonese) people but further afield through the Persian gulf with merchants, notables and artisans from the Persian and Ottoman Empires.

Southeast Asia and Indonesia in par-ticular proved to be a rich source of ear-ly immigrants. Many slaves - including some banished notables and political

Cosmopolitan Cape Town

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exiles – were drawn from the hundreds of tiny islands that make up the Indone-sian archipelago. VOC records indicate that Sulawesi, Bogies, Bantam, Java, Cirebon, Timor and Nias were some of their places of origin. Batavia was the home of the VOC headquarters and a well organised town around a fort, upon which the design for the Castle of Good Hope was based.

The lingua franca at the Cape during

Cosmopolitan Cape Town

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Bruce Franck 1907-1970

Bo-Kaap series

pencil, wash

68/29:13, 23, 19, 4, 12, 20

Purchased through

Jt gregson Bequest

the early years of settlement was a cre-olised Portuguese – a reminder that the Dutch had wrested the lucrative Indian Ocean trade away from the Portuguese by occupying their forts and strongholds in Goa, Calcutta and other ports along the littoral. All these diverse people contributed a mix of language, genes, ideas, religion and culture that spawned a new creolised African language – Af-rikaans – and a new creole identity at the Cape. After the abolition of slavery in 1838 and the termination of appren-ticeship four years later, descendants of the newly freed population made their homes on the outskirts of the set-tlement in the so called Malay Quar-ter on the slopes of Signal Hill and at Paaperndorp – later District Six. These regions were examples of the diverse and cosmopolitan character of Cape Town, until the Nationalist government earmarked District Six for “white” de-velopment and expelled the long-es-tablished community. However, the BoKaap was spared this fate and exists today as a thriving reminder of cosmo-politan Cape Town’s roots.

Now home to some 3.74 million peo-ple of a wide variety of diverse ethnici-ties, cultures and religions, the majestic Table Mountain overlooks a city where the sounds of church bells intermingles with the call of the Athaan, the chant of the Hare Krishna temple and the bells of the synagogue.

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Inspired by a need to overcome the commercial monopoly that Portugal held in Asia; a group of Dutch mer-chants amalgamated to form the VOC (Vereenigde Oost- Indische Compagnie or Dutch East India Company) in 1602. They were granted a government-sanc-tioned exclusive trade licence, which empowered them to dominate trade in the Far East. A group of seventeen pow-erful officials presided over the affairs of the VOC at their office headquarters in

the Netherlands.Cape Town’s strategic position be-

tween Batavia, Africa and the Neth-erlands was exploited by the VOC as a suitable site for their refreshment station. Dutch settlement followed in 1652 through the creation of outposts throughout the Cape, in land formerly occupied by indigenous San and Khoi people.

People from South Asia, Southeast Asia, Madagascar and Mozambique

Power and Domination in the Indian Ocean

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were brought to the Cape as slaves of the VOC. The economy of the Cape rested on their free labour. VOC power at the Cape was absolute, anchored in a Dutch reformed doctrine of obedience and instilled through brutal means. The most severe form of punishment at the Cape – for slaves and free blacks – was the breaking of people alive at the wheel. Severe punishment for white set-tlers on the other hand, was banishment from the colony.

VOC rule at the Cape ended in 1795 with the first British Occupation of the Cape. This coincided with the disband-ing of an economically flagging VOC within a background of war and chang-ing world economy. However the im-pact of a century and a half of Dutch domination remains deeply imbedded in our society, evident in the cosmopoli-tan identity of Cape Town and the pop-ulation of it’s outlying district.

Left

Abraham Ortelius

Africa Tabula Nova, 1570

on loan from the

Library of Parliament

accession number 18116

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Silk originated in China in 2640 BC. However, for 3000 years China kept silk a secret, but Japan obtained the formu-la in AD 300.

Silk production spread westwards across Asia. The Persian Empire was a major producer of high quality silks that were traded along the Silk Route to the Ottoman Empire. Here in the ate-liers of Constantinople (later Istanbul), it was woven into sumptuous fabrics, some embellished with silver wrapped thread, much in demand and copied in Europe and Central Asia and presented as diplomatic gifts to Indian and South-east Asian rulers. During the late 17th C silk production moved to Italy, Spain and France. In the 16th C silk industry reached England and later America.

It soon became clear that the only countries that could benefit from the silk industry were those who were able to benefit from cheap and plentiful la-bour. After 1600 the silk industry was confined mainly to China, Japan, India and Italy. Lustrous Chinese silks were most sought after by the wealthy class-es in Europe. The VOC traded huge quantities of silk from China in ex-change for silver from the New World. In Europe silk was tailored into exqui-site and highly valued garments that

identified the wearer as a person of status. Silk is still regarded as a luxury fibre and has maintained its position of prestige throughout the development of the silk industry.

Sumptuary laws in Europe and the colonies of Southeast Asia and the Cape restricted the display and use of luxury materials by law. Silk was reserved for the privileged classes, thereby entrench-ing their status. The shimmering silk costumes worn by the extravagantly clothed subjects depicted in these Neth-erlands paintings convey both wealth and power.

Silk from China

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Dirck van Sanvoort (1610/11- 1680)

Couple with children in the park

of a castle, 1639

33/13

oil on panel

michaelis collection

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Located on the southernmost tip of Af-rica, midway between Asia and Europe, Cape Town has always been a cosmo-politan city. Since its earliest begin-nings the city has been called home by a great variety of people from all over the world. When looking at early Cape furniture it is important to bear in mind the diverse society that produced, cared for and used the pieces.

Wood around the early Cape settle-ment was in short supply and had to be imported from as early as 1657. Across the Indian Ocean, from countries like India, Batavia, Mauritius and Ceylon, came wood types such as teak, djati, amboyna, padauk, rosewood, sandal-wood, satinwood and ebony, while oak and pine where imported from Europe.

The limited supply of wood resulted in craftsmen using what they could get their hands on and this might have resulted in the combination of indigenous stinkwood and yellowwood with the exotic wood types. This combination became a dis-tinctive quality of Cape furniture.

There is evidence that Asian crafts-men were working as carpenters and were involved in furniture making at the Cape. Determining the skills and origins of specific Asian carpenters has proved to be rather difficult and exact-ly what influence they had on furniture

production is thus uncertain.The pieces of Cape furniture that

have survived are mostly simplified versions of northern European styles. Unlike most Indo-Dutch furniture, fur-niture made at the Cape does not fea-ture characteristically Asian ornamen-tation. Interestingly furniture made in the Dutch colony of Ceylon, although ornately carved, shows similarities with Cape furniture.

Furniture that was described as ‘ori-ental’ in style was present in some Cape homes. Whether this meant that the furniture was made in Asian countries or if the pieces were locally manufac-tured and showed Asian influence, is not clear.

Asian style furniture was not sought after at the Cape, instead land, architec-ture and clothing were deemed import-ant as symbols of social status.

Furniture at the Cape

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Unknown maker

Church chair

Batavia

17th-18th century

ebony

on loan from the

groote Schuur collection

DPW gS0920

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Left

Unknown maker

Cabinet on later stand

ceylon

ca. 17th century

Sandalwood and ebony,

brass mounts

on loan from the groote Schuur

collection, DPW

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The arrival of slaves and ‘Free Blacks’ from South Asia and Southeast Asia during the VOC era had a profound impact on the character of Cape Town. Although they originated mostly from India and the Indonesian Archipelago, they were popularly and collectively re-ferred to as ‘Malay’.

‘Malay’ male slaves were valued by the Dutch for their skills as cabinet makers, masons, carpenters, bricklayers and tailors. ‘Malay’ slave women were noted seamstresses who were excep-tionally gifted at fine needlework. They also brought with them unique culinary skills and introduced cuisine such as bo-boties, curries and atjars to the Cape. Linguistically they influenced the emer-gence of a new language, namely Afri-kaans, and many Afrikaans words, such as piesang and kaparang have their roots in the East.

However, much as their skills were valued, ‘Malay’ slaves were also feared by the Dutch who regarded them as ‘vengeful’. Slaves from Bougies were particularly feared and as early as 1767 there was a proclamation against the import of slaves from the East , al-though this was never strictly adhered to. Certainly Islam gave ‘Malay’ slaves a psychological bridge out of slavery and through their interaction with often

wealthy and educated Free Black Mus-lims, they were able to traverse some of the excesses of the slave existence.

The kramats that form the protective circle of Islam at the Cape bear testi-mony to the early roots of Islam at the Cape, which coincides with the arrival of South Asian and Southeast Asian slaves during the VOC era.

Islam at the Cape

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Bertram Dumbleton

(1896-1966)

South african

Abdul, 1942

tempera on panel

iSang 1351

Presented by the

Sa fine arts association

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The first time the Dutch saw porce-lain in any significant quantities was in the form of booty captured from rival Portuguese trading vessels. The porcelain from the Portuguese ships (carracs) was of a type produced for ex-port in Jingdezhen under the emperor Wanli who ruled from 1573 to 1619. It became known as kraakporselein be-cause kraak was the Dutch word for the Portuguese carracs.

Chinese kraakporselein caused quite a sensation and attracted an eager buy-ing public. It was harder, thinner and more lustrous than the locally pro-duced tin-glazed earthenwares and stonewares, and certainly also more decorative and colourful. Its exotic deep blue decorations executed on a pure white background were distrib-uted all over the surface. The intro-duction of porcelain furthermore came at a time when a growing group of wealthy middle class burgers could afford, and wanted, a certain measure of luxury, thus ensuring a market for the porcelain despite its expense.

Kraak style dishes and bowls fea-tured prominently in Dutch still-life paintings, lending an exotic flavour to

renditions of tables laden with luscious fruits and other treasured objects.

Export porcelain became one of the most commonly traded commodi-ties during the VOC period frequent-ly used as ballast to weigh down the merchant ships passing the Cape of Good Hope.

Chinese porcelain in Dutch still-life painting

right

Georg Hainz (Active 1666-1700)

Still-life

oil on canvas

33/13

michaelis collection

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Left

Japanese under glaze blue

porcelain dishes

arita late 17th century

iziko Social history collections

Sachm 39a, b

at the centre of each dish is the

monogram of the voc (vereenig-

de oost-indische compagnie or

Dutch east india company).

Such dishes were ordered by

the voc from 1668 to the early

18th century and were for the ex-

clusive use of company offi cials

in Batavia, on board voc ships

and in voc settlements through-

out asia, and also the cape.

the central medallion is sur-

rounded by decorative motifs

including the phoenix, which is

a symbol of wisdom and energy,

as well as pomegranates, whose

numerous seeds are an emblem

of prosperity, and represent the

hope of a family for many off-

spring. the decorative panels

on the rim are similar to chinese

Kraak style porcelain.

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The contemporary silk embroidered textile from Tashkent is a copy of a much older Indian design of the tree of life, a recurring and popular motif oc-curring on elaborately coloured cotton cloths known as palampore.

A palampore is a type of hand-paint-ed and mordant-dyed bed cover that was made in India for the export mar-ket during the eighteenth century and very early nineteenth century. Only the

wealthiest classes could afford to buy palampore; therefore, the few examples that have survived are often quite valu-able today. Palampore were primarily exported to Europe and to Dutch col-onists in Indonesia and what was then called Ceylon.

The kalamkari technique was used in the manufacture of palampores, where-by an artist drew designs on cotton or linen fabric with a kalam pen containing

Eastern textiles at home in Dutch colonies

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Eastern textiles at home in Dutch colonies

mordant and then dipped the textile in dye. The dye adhered to the cloth only where the mordant had been applied. This lengthy process had to be repeated for each colour in the design. Small de-tails were then painted by hand on the cloth after the dying process was com-pleted. Palampore patterns were usually very complex and elaborate, depicting a wide variety of plants, flowers, and animals, including peacocks, elephants,

and horses. Because a palampore was hand-created, each design is unique.

The tree of life motif was copied in silk embroidery for the export mar-ket. Designs went back and forth from Europe to centres of silk and textile production in Central Asia and India connecting the two worlds in a global network that passed by and impacted profoundly on the settlement at Cape of Good Hope.

Left

Chintz textiles

on loan from

Dominic touwen

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Left

Unknown artists’s co-operative

Silk ceremonial suzani with

peacock motif, 2013

tashkent

Silk hand-woven fabric,

coloured embroidery silks

on loan from

manina Baumann collection

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After 1600, when the rich resources of the Indian Ocean regions became easily accessible to Europe and the colonised world, new textiles and dye pigments became a lucrative trading commodity. Access to the blues, reds and yellows and their possibilities for secondary colours such as green and black, revolutionised fashion and costume in the Europe and the New World. Cotton originally from India, absorbed the new bright dye co-

lour, unlike the heavy linen and wool in current use in Europe. The properties of cotton as a cheap, light and cool fab-ric combined with the Indian, Chinese and Southeast Asian weaving techniques and designs transformed European and American tastes, fashions and markets up until the late 19th century. Colourful, affordable printed or embroidered cotton textiles became accessible to all classes and indeed democratised fashion.

Cotton across the seas

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Merchant ships on the return trip to Europe were obliged to break their journey at the bustling Cape port which developed into an important centre for the distribution of textiles. From 18th and 19th century household invento-ries in the Cape Archives it appears that a thriving trade in textiles existed informally amongst residents of the settlement who used their front rooms (voorkamer) from which to conduct

Cotton across the seas

Left

Indigo Textiles

india

cotton, indigo pigment,

resist print

hand printed using 18th c

woodblocks and design

on loan from

Dominic touwen

business. There are rare surviving exam-ples of trade textiles from both the Dutch and British East India Company in the Iziko Social History Collection and the Costume Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Global colour

The deep and versatile blue dye extracted from the Indigo plant native to India was in plentiful supply when competing Euro-pean traders and fortune hunters raced to the Indian Ocean from the 1600’s.

Indigo cultivation rapidly spread to Africa and the Americas accompanied by abusive labour practices required to sustain such large scale export cultivation. The lucrative textile market in Europe fu-elled the Atlantic and African slave trades, ironically creating a further market for both indigo and cotton - the identifying dress of unfree classes in the colonised world. Contemporary observers at the Cape such as Lady Anne Barnard (at the Cape from 1795-1806) depicted servants and labourers in indigo stripes and ma-dras checked cottons – markers of slavery from the Cape to the Caribbean.

Maritime archaeologists at Iziko have recently retrieved indigo cakes and woven rattan baskets in which they were packed for export, from the cargo hold of a Dutch East India merchant ship wrecked along the South African Coast.

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Over 3000 wrecks are recorded along the southern African coast, more than 300 alone in Table Bay.

Dangerous maritime conditions were a major risk to the success of colonial trad-ing expeditions.

The Chinese export ceramics in this cabinet, were excavated from two East Indian trade wrecks off the Cape Coast – The Oosterland and the Brederode.

The Oosterland, built in Middleburg, Holland in 1685 was wrecked between Robben Island and Paarden Eiland in a storm in May 1697.The vessel had brought French Huguenots to the Cape of Good Hope on a previous voyage in 1688. However nine years later on her return from Indonesia she was wrecked in a storm. The richly laden cargo included textiles, indigo, tropical woods, nuts, co-conut shells, earthenware, porcelain and spices. The Oosterland was the first wreck to be archaeologically excavated off Africa.

Maritime Archaeological excavation in South Africa falls under the protection of The SA Heritage Resources Agency in line with the National Heritage Resources Act no. 25 of 1999.

Wrecked cargo

right

installation view of shipwrecked

chinese export ceramics

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