Florence, Lady Phillips
Encyclopedia
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
n art patroness and promoter of indigenous culture. She was married to Sir Lionel Phillips, 1st Baronet
Lionel Phillips
Sir Lionel Phillips, 1st Baronet was a South African mining magnate and politician.-Early life:Phillips was born in London on 6 August 1855 to a family of lower middle-class merchants, who formed part of a growing group of Jews set to play a major role in the commerce and politics of...
, a mining magnate and politician and was known by one of her middle names, Florence.
Early life
Florence Ortlepp was born in Cape TownCape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
in 1863, the only daughter of Albert Frederick Ortlepp, a Colesberg land surveyor and naturalist, and Sarah Walker. She received her education at Rondebosch
Rondebosch
Rondebosch is one of the Southern Suburbs of Cape Town, South Africa. It is primarily a residential suburb, with a medium-size shopping area, a small business district as well as the main campus of the University of Cape Town.-History:...
and later in Bloemfontein
Bloemfontein
Bloemfontein is the capital city of the Free State Province of South Africa; and, as the judicial capital of the nation, one of South Africa's three national capitals – the other two being Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Pretoria, the administrative capital.Bloemfontein is popularly and...
. Lionel Phillips met her on the diamond-diggings and married her in 1885. They moved to Johannesburg in 1889. She travelled extensively from 1887, but returned hurriedly to be with her husband during his trial following the Jameson Raid
Jameson Raid
The Jameson Raid was a botched raid on Paul Kruger's Transvaal Republic carried out by a British colonial statesman Leander Starr Jameson and his Rhodesian and Bechuanaland policemen over the New Year weekend of 1895–96...
. After his sentence, reprieve and exile, they left for London and established a home in Grosvenor Square
Grosvenor Square
Grosvenor Square is a large garden square in the exclusive Mayfair district of London, England. It is the centrepiece of the Mayfair property of the Duke of Westminster, and takes its name from their surname, "Grosvenor".-History:...
while maintaining a country house at Tylney Hall in Hampshire. While the couple lived in London, Florence acquired a keen interest in art and bought numerous works by artists of the time, including William Orpen
William Orpen
Major Sir William Newenham Montague Orpen, KBE, RA, RHA was an Irish portrait painter, who worked mainly in London...
, William Rothenstein
William Rothenstein
Sir William Rothenstein was an English painter, draughtsman and writer on art.-Life and work:William Rothenstein was born into a German-Jewish family in Bradford, West Yorkshire. His father, Moritz, emigrated from Germany in 1859 to work in Bradford's burgeoning textile industry...
, Walter Sickert
Walter Sickert
Walter Richard Sickert , born in Munich, Germany, was a painter who was a member of the Camden Town Group in London. He was an important influence on distinctively British styles of avant-garde art in the 20th century....
, Philip Wilson Steer
Philip Wilson Steer
Philip Wilson Steer OM was a British painter of landscape and occasional portraits and figure studies. He was a leading figure in the Impressionist movement in Britain.-Life and work:...
, Camille Pissarro
Camille Pissarro
Camille Pissarro was a French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas . His importance resides in his contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, as he was the only artist to exhibit in both forms...
, Claude Monet
Claude Monet
Claude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...
and Alfred Sisley
Alfred Sisley
Alfred Sisley was an Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of his life, in France, but retained British citizenship. He was the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedication to painting landscape en plein air...
. She presented many of these works to the Johannesburg Art Gallery, which she actively helped to establish.
On a visit to South Africa in 1905, she commissioned Rudolf Marloth
Rudolf Marloth
Hermann Wilhelm Rudolf Marloth 28 December 1855 Lübben, Germany - 15 May 1931 Caledon, Cape Province was a German-born South African botanist, pharmacist and analytical chemist, best known for his Flora of South Africa which appeared in six superbly illustrated volumes between 1913 and 1932...
to undertake his Flora of South Africa, a mammoth work published in 6 volumes between 1913 and 1932.
Art collection
After resettling in Johannesburg, she started acquiring paintings with a view to eventually founding an art gallery, which after many difficulties took shape as the Johannesburg Art GalleryJohannesburg Art Gallery
The Johannesburg Art Gallery is an art gallery located in Joubert Park, in the central business district of Johannesburg, South Africa. The building was designed by Edward Lutyens and consists of 15 exhibition halls and sculpture gardens...
. She played a leading role in projects aimed at cultivating and preserving the local artistic heritage. She persuaded Sir Max Michaelis
Max Michaelis
Sir Maximilian Michaelis was a South African financier, mining magnate, benefactor and patron of the arts....
to donate his considerable collection of 17th century Dutch and Flemish paintings to the city of Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
. She headed a movement to preserve and restore the Koopmans-De Wet House in Cape Town and was an enthusiastic collector of Africana furniture, both for her own home and public institutions. She was instrumental, with Prof. G.E. Pearse, in establishing a Faculty of Architecture at the University of the Witwatersrand
University of the Witwatersrand
The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg is a South African university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University...
.
Literary output
Later life
Florence and Lionel Phillips eventually settled at the farm VergelegenVergelegen
Vergelegen is an historic wine estate near Somerset West, in the Western Cape province of South Africa.-Foundation:The estate was settled in 1700 by an early Governor of the Cape, Willem Adriaan van der Stel...
near Somerset West in 1924. Here they devoted their spare time to encouraging the preservation of national heritage culture and artefacts. They also sponsored immigrants through the 1820 Settlers Memorial Association and a number of other public causes. Many of the Randlords and their wives commissioned portraits of themselves from leading European society portraitists of the time. The living room of the Vergelegen Manor House is adorned by a youthful and opulent portrayal of Florence by the Italian artist Giovanni Boldini
Giovanni Boldini
Giovanni Boldini was an Italian genre and portrait painter. According to , he was known as the "Master of Swish" because of his flowing style of painting.-Early life:...
, while a more mature and sombre rendering by the British portraitist Sir William Nicholson is to be seen in the Music Room. The Boldini portrait was presented by Lady Phillips to the SA National Gallery in the 1930s.
She died in 1940 at Vergelegen
Vergelegen
Vergelegen is an historic wine estate near Somerset West, in the Western Cape province of South Africa.-Foundation:The estate was settled in 1700 by an early Governor of the Cape, Willem Adriaan van der Stel...
, Somerset West. She and her husband are buried in the Brixton Cemetery in Johannesburg. They had two sons and a daughter.