Early KZN Materials and associated items in the Johannesburg Art Gallery

[Source - Chloe Rushovich for FHYA, 2020, using materials provided by Nessa Leibhammer: Nessa Leibhammer was the curator of the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) southern African Traditional Collections from 1994 to 1996, and from 2005 to 2013. The FHYA commissioned Leibhammer to identify objects from the Traditional Collections at JAG that came from the FHYA target area of KwaZulu-Natal and immediately adjacent regions which she identified as probably dating to the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She selected a series of items from the Brenthurst Collection (assembled by Jonathan Lowen); the Horstmann Collection (assembled by Udo Horstmann); the Maritz Collection (assembled by Nicholas Maritz); the Brodie Collection (assembled by Mordechai Brodie); the Karner Collection (assembled by Ken Karner) as well as items owned by the Jaques family that were purchased by JAG in 1987. The selection includes a range of genre: carved wooden objects, metal and beadwork items, staffs, snuff boxes, headrests, vessels, baskets, pots, etc. She also purposefully selected objects where she knew there were similar examples in other, older, collections as well as notable items where no secure information is known, so as to open the possibility that such items might accrue an information context through appearing on the FHYA exemplar. The FHYA organized all of this material into series, with each series being named after the primary collector of the material.]