Charles Davidson Bell

Charles Davidson Bell FRSE (22 October 1813 – 7 April 1882) was a Scottish-born artist who spent the majority of his life in the Cape Colony.

In 1851, he designed a silver gallantry medal for Cape governor Sir Harry Smith to present to troops during the 8th Frontier War.

Appointed to the Postal Enquiry Board in 1852, he designed the well-known Cape of Good Hope triangular stamp, the first of that shape, which became extremely rare and consequently much sought after by philatelists.

Many of his sketches and paintings show a whimsical sense of humour, though his sensitive portrayals of the mixed population of Cape Town and of the tribes he encountered on the Smith expedition to the north, have become an invaluable record of life in 19th-century South Africa.

The return of many of his paintings from England to South Africa in 1978, gave art historians a fresh appreciation of his work and greater insight into that period of Cape history.

Against this backdrop, the colonial artist Charles Davidson Bell had produced a few sketches of Khoikhoi men and women, depicting them either as useless drunkards or lazy members of Cape society ... the duplication and re-duplication of these stereotyped images distributed as 'pictorial souvenirs' in the form of 201 postcards invariably left an imprint of negativity in the psyche of the colonial beholder.Bell also made an important contribution to heraldry in South Africa.

Throughout his residence at the Cape, he copied old Dutch/Afrikaner coats of arms from memorials, seals, stained glass windows, and other artefacts, and in 1861 he advertised his intention of publishing them in book form.