This contribution imagined and funded the creation of the book, Samuel Daniell: A Life of an Artist in Southern Africa and Ceylon, 1799–1811, by author Michael Stevenson.

The book is a work of exceptional distinction, beautifully produced, rigorously researched and intellectually compelling. It offers the most comprehensive and authoritative account to date of Samuel Daniell’s life and artistic legacy, restoring prominence to a figure long overshadowed within the canon of Southern African exploration and visual documentation.

During his relatively short life, Daniell produced an extraordinary and prolific body of work - watercolours, sketches, drawings and engravings - documenting the landscapes, wildlife and, most significantly, the indigenous peoples of Southern Africa with a precision that anticipates the documentary authority of early photography. His images combine artistic sensitivity with ethnographic detail, offering rare visual testimony of a region undergoing profound political and cultural change.