Petrus Jacobs

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Anno: 2026

Dimensione opera: 89 x 63 cm

Descrizione: Inheritance

The work speaks about what we inherit as South Africans from our European past. Delft porcelain is a very recognisable part of that inheritance. It was traded and brought through South Africa, and its imagery and stories remain visible and present in some South African homes. I place myself in that inherited past, writing my own story onto something that has become a relic — a story of coming from somewhere and learning to belong somewhere else.

Becoming Porcelain is beautiful and precious, but it is also fragile. The little boy personifies that fragility with the innocence of an identity that was not chosen. He was born into a particular heritage, into a history and culture already decided by history, before he was old enough to question or decide what it meant to be an Afrikaner, and how this European past would factor into that.