Transvaal Republican, An Album Drawings of Johannesburg and Pretoria, by Desiree Picton- Seymour and R I B Webster

Transvaal Republican, An Album  Drawings of Johannesburg and Pretoria, by Desiree Picton- Seymour and R I B Webster,

Hardcover 1956, Maskew Miller, Cape Town, 31 plates, 71 pages. 

This  small album was a sequel to the first,  published a few years later and presented in much the same format of scraper board drawings, but with a single tipped in plate , a water colour of the Raadsaal Pretoria .  The all too short descriptive texts accompanying each drawing is again by Webster.   Most of the drawings capture  the old CBD Johannesburg buildings  (in fact only 7 from Pretoria).  It is an album of early Johannesburg and Pretoria , pre 1900 .  The appeal of this book lies in the artist's impression of so many either demolished  buildings (the Standard Building, the Old Arcade,  the Exploration Building, Ziman's Building , cottages on Ameshoff St, Braamfontein ) or edifices now derelict (the Castle Factory). The one heritage success is perhaps the old iron framed Park Station, but that now stands isolated , unused and unloved despite recycling plans. Early wrought iron work was particularly successfully captured by Picton-Seymour in the woodcuts, and again facades mattered more than people. This is also a highly collectible title.