King Khama III

A bronze portrait of King Khama III (1837-1923) was sculpted by the Dutch-born South African artist Anton van Wouw (1862-1945). The sculpture was commissioned to Van Wouw by the former Bechuanaland government, today known as Botswana for their government buildings shortly after the death of this famous king of the BaNgwato people. This bronze was cast by the Renzo Vignali Artistic Foundry in February 1984. Short biography: Anton van Wouw was born on 26 December 1862 in Driebergen in the Netherlands. He started life after school as a stucco worker in Delft where he learnt to sculpt. He also started to study at the Rotterdam Academy for Arts but stopped his studies to join his father and brother in South Africa. After having a hard time as an artist in the early beginnings of his career of the then Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (South African Republic), Van Wouw finally got his big break when Sammy Marks, a rich industrialist, commissioned Van Wouw to create the famous Kruger Memorial, currently situated on Church Square in the centre of South Africa's Capital city Pretoria. From there, Van Wouw went from creating over 10 large monuments, as well as more than 100 other sculptures in his lifetime. Anton van Wouw passed away in Pretoria in 1945 just after completing his largest work, a figure of Woman and Children for the Voortrekker Monument.