Artwork Description
A rider leans forward in the saddle in "A Horse With No Name", Lisette Forsyth’s original painting on a page of the Cape of Good Hope Government Gazette from the 1880s. Painted in loose strokes of blue, white, black and earthy brown, horse and rider emerge from the dense typography of the old newspaper while parts of the printed page remain visible through the image.
There is a wonderful detail in Forsyth’s choice of paper. Behind the rider is a Private Bill for the Cape Central Railways, alongside notices of property sales and other fragments of daily life at the Cape. Horse and railway, two forms of transport belonging to the same period, meet quite naturally on the page. It is the kind of connection that makes Forsyth’s paintings worth looking at closely: the history beneath the image is never incidental.
Measuring 30 × 42 cm, A Horse With No Name is an original acrylic and ink work on historical Gazette paper. It is sold unframed for R16,250.
