What a treat, this piece of research. The question I'm left with is the gap you point to almost in passing: nobody seems to know when or why the bust was placed there. The timing is suggestive - Leonard died in 1909, the building was inaugurated in 1910, and there was clearly memorial money about (the Wits library fund). Was he installed at the opening as a founding statement about whose court this was, or did he drift in later through institutional inertia? It seems to matter for the "what next" question because a deliberate founding gesture makes a stronger case for recontextualisation than an accident of storage. Do the Bar council minutes or court records say anything, or does the trail run cold?
What a treat, this piece of research. The question I'm left with is the gap you point to almost in passing: nobody seems to know when or why the bust was placed there. The timing is suggestive - Leonard died in 1909, the building was inaugurated in 1910, and there was clearly memorial money about (the Wits library fund). Was he installed at the opening as a founding statement about whose court this was, or did he drift in later through institutional inertia? It seems to matter for the "what next" question because a deliberate founding gesture makes a stronger case for recontextualisation than an accident of storage. Do the Bar council minutes or court records say anything, or does the trail run cold?
Art historian Gerard de Kamper commented that the sculpture was commissioned in 1911, and created by Anton van Wouw.
Excellent observation; I will see what I can find.