^Lot 12 FIONA CAPSTICK: Art and Antiquities from the Personal Library of Peter Hathaway Capstick

The CAPSTICK donation this year is truly historic as it brings together four very scarce items linking the Dallas Safari Club and DSC Foundation with the most extensive and valuable repository of books, manuscripts, correspondence, maps and artwork, all revolving around a renowned and highly controversial 19th century Frenchman, François Levaillant - pioneering traveler in South Africa, explorer, naturalist, zoological collector, skilled taxidermist and true pioneer of African ornithology. The very scarce 1740 map of the Western Cape of South Africa, entirely in Italian as it was published in Florence, is hand-colored and framed in oak. Levaillant would certainly have consulted this map before arriving in Cape Town in April 1781. The three-volume calf-bound set, printed in 1796, details Levaillant's travels and exploration in the Western Cape from 1783 to 1785; a folding map and twenty-two engraved plates enhance this historic work. An impressive, sumptiously illustrated biography of African travel and adventure entitled FRANCOIS LEVAILLANT AND THE BIRDS OF AFRICA was produced by The Brenthurst Press in 2004 in a strictly limited edition of 1070 books and is one of only 850 standard copies bound in cloth. The accompanying fifty-seven, full-color African bird paintings in five folders, produced together with the biography, are based on Levaillant's orignial water color paintings, which are one of the jewels in the Brenthurst Library. The paintings, all copyrighted to the Oppenheimer family of gold and diamond fame, were never published before this exquisite, limited edition. These treasures, from Peter CAPSTICK's personal archives, epitomize the African safari...fish eagle as they ignite the African skies, vultures squabbling over a carcass, turtle doves and their rippling calls at dawn, and the distant whoops of owls at night as safari fires crackle against the stars. DSC FOUNDATION THANKS FIONA CAPSTICK FOR THIS 100% DONATION. REFERENCE THE CHARITABLE DEDUCTION QUALIFICATIONS IN THE OFFICAL RULES SECTION OF THE AUCTION CATALOG.