Take a trip along Chapman’s Peak Drive and, if you look carefully, you may spot the blue leopard statue down by the water’s edge. This bronze sculpture was created by Ivan Mitford-Barberton and was placed on its rocky pedestal in March 1963.
The leopard appears blue because of the oxidation of bronze in the salty breeze of Hout Bay. The 295kg statue is a memorial to the wildlife that once roamed the forests and mountains of the Cape Peninsula. The last leopard spotted in Hout Bay was seen on Little Lion’s Head in 1937.
The leopard sits proudly atop an elongated rock, isolated among many other smaller boulders. This has left many visitors and residents wondering how the heavy bronze statue was placed on top of the tall rock.
Life of the sculptor
Ivan Mitford-Barberton donated the bronze leopard to the Hout Bay community. He was born in Somerset East (Eastern Cape) in 1896 and attended St. Andrew’s College in Grahamstown. Mitford-Barberton continued his studies at the Grahamstown School of Art from 1919 and later at the Royal College of Art in London from 1923. He passed away in Hout Bay in 1976.
Mitford-Barberton was a member of the South African Society of Arts and he lectured at the Michaelis School of Fine Art (now part of the University of Cape Town) in Cape Town. He designed and created a number of prominent statues around South Africa, as well as the bronze leopard.
Mitford-Barberton’s other works
The monument of Jock of the Bushveld in Barberton was created by him - incidentally, his ancestors co-founded the small town. The sculpture of Peter Pan at the Red Cross Children’s Hospital in Rondebosch was created by Mitford-Barberton. He also created the statue of the settler family at the 1820 Settlers National Monument in Grahamstown.
In the 1930s, Mitford-Barberton designed parts of the interior and exterior decoration of the Mutual Building in Cape Town. This building was once the tallest construction in Africa and the exterior is adorned with a 120 metre sculpted granite slab depicting nine four-metre-high figures.
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Take a look at the historical pictures and story of Groot Constantia.
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