5
The number of versions of The Scream by Edvard Munch. In two he used pastel, one is a lithograph print, and two were painted, one in 1893 and the other in 1910.
73 000
The age of the oldest known homo sapiens-made drawing, cross-hatched on a stone flake. It was found in Blombos Cave in the southern Cape.
2007
The year SA artist Mary Sibande introduced Sophie, a life-sized sculpted alter ego modelled in her own image.
32
The age at which renowned SA ceramic artist and sculptor Bonnie Ntshalintshali died.
55.06
The height in millimetres of the beautifully detailed golden rhino found at Mapungubwe in 1934. It dates to 1250-1290 and was buried with a member of Mapungubwe’s ruling royal elite.
1906
The year in which Swedish artist and mystic Hilma af Klint first began making abstract art — considered among the first such works in Western art.
2017
The year in which a miniature portrait by Margaret Gillies of a young Charles Dickens was discovered in a tray at an auction in Pietermaritzburg. Also in the tray was a metal lobster and a bronze plaque.
250 000
The number of beneficiaries of France’s special unemployment system for artists. To qualify, one has to have worked 507 hours a year on an artistic project.
1958
The Château Mouton Rothschild vintage that features a sheep drawn by Salvador Dalí.
1 950 000
The price in dollars for which an artwork by Ghanaian artist El Anatsui titled New Layout — from his “Cloth” series and made of bottle caps woven together with copper wire — sold at a Christie’s auction in 2021.
• From the September edition of Wanted, 2023.
