Nic Bladen
South African 1974-
Bulbophyllum
signed
sliver with a green patina, on a crystal base
height: 15cm excluding base; 19cm including base; width; 25cm; depth: 25cm

The present lot was commissioned by the Endangered Cape Orchid Project and is accompanied by a special crate designed by the artist for the artwork. All proceeds from the sale of the present lot will be used to support a two-year Master's project investigating tissue culture and other methods to preserve nearly extinct Disa orchid species, led by Dr Donovan Kirkwood at Stellenbosch University.

Nic Bladen's mesmerising botanical sculptures represent a recent innovation in the long and storied history of botanical art in South Africa. Bladen, a trained dental technician and former apprentice to Otto du Plessis at Cape Town foundry, Bronze Age, uses a millennia-old technique known as lost-wax casting to delicately fossilise flowers and whole plants. Many of these plants are representative of the UNESCO-recognised Cape Floral Region, the smallest yet richest of the world's six floral kingdoms. Bladen's interest in faithfully depicting plant matter followed a request from the Cape Orchid Society (COS) to cast whole orchids in silver.1 The commission prompted a new direction for Bladen, the son of a stonemason, who at the time was struggling to forge an original career path.

Bladen's process of finding material for his sculptures involves harvesting plants in the wild, legally, and, still working insitu, producing a mould using portable equipment. Studio casting follows later and involves various established processes in order to produce a refined botanical sculpture. The present lot depicts a member of the hinged-lip Bulbophyllums genus of orchids, one of the largest genera of flowering plants. It was commissioned for the Endangered Cape Orchid Project, an initiative of COS to repopulate key areas of the Western Cape with endangered orchid species. Launched in 2017, the project initially focussed on 10 endangered Disa species.2

The beauty of the Cape's orchids has long been a source of their peril. In 1888, Harry Bolus, an acclaimed South African botanist and philanthropist, lamented the 'needless destruction' and 'wasteful gathering by unskilled hands' of Disa tubers from Table Mountain for export to Europe.3 In the supervening years, burning of habitats, urbanisation, poor agricultural practices and infesting alien vegetation have caused great losses to orchid habitats, according to COS. Many Cape orchid species are now lost forever or threatened with extinction. Bladen's choice of materials - especially bronze- directly speaks to his desire to create 'metal fossils' that commemorate, minutely and precisely, details of the Cape's threatened natural beauty.4

1. Tudor Caradoc-Davies (2018) 'Cape sculptor turns endangered plants into newly-minted floral fossils', Sunday Times, online, https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/lifestyle/home-and-gardening/2018-05-12-cape-sculptor-turns-endangered-plants-into-newly-minted-floral-fossils/, accessed 28 May 2024.
2. - (2021) Newsletter of Cape Orchid Society, April, page 7.
3. Harry Bolus (1888) 'The Orchids of the Cape Peninsula', in The Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society, Cape Town, The Society, Vol. V, Part 1, page 148.
4. Tudor Caradoc-Davies, op.cit.