Rare Curiosities From 18th and 19th Centuries Restored and on Exhibit in PTA

After sitting out of public view for more than three decades, a rare collection of Southern African objects from the 18th and 19th centuries is now on display at the Javett Arts Centre at the University of Pretoria.

Pretoria, South Africa (08 April 2026) – Nineteen University of Pretoria students have spent nearly two years carefully cleaning, repairing, and documenting 239 Southern African objects that are hundreds of years old.

They clocked around 6000 hours of work in restoring these cultural items, many of which are now on display for the public to see. The exhibit, Orchard of the Imagination, has been open at the Javett Arts Centre at UP since March and runs until February 2027.

The roughly 110 items on display are mostly everyday practical items (for that period) like staffs, headrests, jewellery, aprons, snuff spoons, and wooden containers. These are objects that real people once wore or used in their daily lives. There are also carved figurines, including a wooden man holding a staff and a woman holding a child, believed to have been made by the same artist. Objects like these give us a deeper glimpse into society’s values, traditions, and way of life back then.

The collection has quite a history. It was started in the 1960s by Jonathan Lowen, a lawyer and former art student, and bought in the 1980s by businessman Harry Oppenheimer, who housed it in his Brenthurst Library in Johannesburg. It spent years on long-term loan to the Johannesburg Art Gallery, until the Brenthurst Library approached UP in 2023 for help conserving it.

‘Together, the pieces in the collection are like hieroglyphs. Each is particular, but there is a fabric of a narrative that is also evident. That is why I was determined to find a home for this collection in South Africa. These items were removed long ago and had to come home,’ says Lowen as quoted by UP.

The wooden objects were restored by Emma Prior from the Brenthurst Library. The beadwork, leather, and fabric items were all handled by UP master’s students studying Heritage Conservation, a two-year programme that started in 2019 and is the first of its kind at a university in sub-Saharan Africa!

The students worked step by step through handling, documenting, cleaning, and repairing each piece in a dedicated Heritage Conservation Laboratory at Javett-UP. They also made custom museum-grade storage systems for all the objects.

It’s only the second time in 35 years that these objects have been on public display in a gallery. The last time was in 1989 at the Johannesburg Art Gallery. That alone makes this exhibition something to see!

Orchard of the Imagination is open at the Javett Arts Centre at UP until February 2027.

Sources: Linked above.

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