J Pierneef was a South African landscape artist, generally considered to be one of the best of the old South African masters. According to this website, Pierneef’s painting, The Baobab Tree (painted around1934) holds the record for most expensive South African painting sold at Bonhams in 2008 for R 11.8 million! Apparently the buyer, says a Mail & Guardian archive article from 2008, was an unidentified South African individual. A powerful painting with an almost unearthly luminous glow about it.
Most expensive baobab (painting) in SA
