Beelaerts van Blokland

A drawing of Gerard Jacob Theodoor Beelaerts van Blokland (1843-1897) by the South African sculptor and sketch artist Anton van Wouw (1862-1945). Beelaerts van Blokland was a Dutch politician known for serving as European envoy for the South African Republic from 1884 to 1897, and as Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1888 to 1891. Short biography: Anton van Wouw was born on 26 December 1862 in Driebergen in the Netherlands. After school, Van Wouw began as a stucco worker in Delft where he learnt the art of sculpture. He studied 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 1852-1902) Van Wouw was finally recognised for his work when Sammy Marks (1884-1920), a Lithuanian-born South African industrialist and financier, 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 art went from strength to strength creating over 10 large bronze 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 in Pretoria.