Special Sculpture Walk A Graceful Extension To The La Motte Experience

As visitors drive through the vineyards towards the reception area of La Motte, they are welcomed by the impressive Wine Bearer sculpture by sculptor Toby Megaw. Holding an overflowing cup in her hands, this proud woman elegantly serves as a symbol of La Motte’s tradition of sharing.

Etched against the landscape of vineyards and mountains, the Wine Bearer, standing four metres tall and weighing 560 kilograms, is a popular discussion point and much photographed object of art.

Inspired by the admiration with which this sculpture is met, a Sculpture Walk – a guided tour along all the sculptures on the estate – has been introduced. This experience reaffirms La Motte’s appreciation of the arts. Along the Walk, the sculptures guide guests through the estate - from the welcoming Wine Bearer to the works displayed in the La Motte Museum, Wine Tasting Room, Rupert Vinoteque, Pierneef à La Motte Restaurant and the estate gardens.

The sculptors of most of the pieces on La Motte, Theo and Toby Megaw, is a father-and-son team who draws their inspiration from beauty and how it is expressed in society through form, stature and gestures, encouraging an individual experience and interpretation as well as dialogue between sculpture and viewer. The collection also includes works by Anton Van Wouw, Fanie Eloff and a recent acquisition by Louis Chanu.

The sculptures on the Sculpture Walk include:

In the estate gardens:

Wine Bearer by Toby Megaw – Welcoming guests to La Motte, she stands strong, but humble, serving as a symbol of La Motte’s spirit of sharing.

Mother and Child by Toby Megaw – Modelled to Toby’s wife Paula and his daughter, The Mother and Child symbolises the importance of family.

The Kiss by Theo Megaw - centrally placed in the courtyard, symbolises motherly love.

The Blushing Bride by Toby Megaw - created on site in 2018 as a special commission and over a four-month period during the Fleurs de La Motte exhibition by Paula van Coller-Louw. The Blushing Bride portrays the elegance, rarity, fragility and beauty of a small protea, the Serruria florida (also known as the Blushing Bride or the Pride of Franschhoek).

In the La Motte Museum:

Voortrekker vrou en kinders (Voortrekker women and children) by Anton Van Wouw – Showing the courage and perseverance of the Voortrekker women. One of the highlights along the Sculpture Walk is the maquette, Voortrekker vrou en kinders (Voortrekker woman and children), dated 1938, by South African master Anton Van Wouw (1862 – 1945). Acclaimed for his monumental pieces created as public commissions for South African monuments such as the National Women’s Memorial, Bloemfontein and the Voortrekker Monument, Pretoria, this Dutch-born sculptor introduced bronze sculpting to the South African arts. With no foundry available in South Africa before 1931, Van Wouw had his first sculptures cast in Italy and the Netherlands. The popular and familiar subjectivity of his work to the South African public made him a well-known art figure and consultant to the establishment of the first bronze foundry of South Africa, in 1931.

Harvest girl by Toby Megaw – a celebration of harvest-time, the most important time on a wine estate.

Girl with violin by Toby Megaw – celebrating the estate’s long-standing association with classical music.

Pierneef by Fanie Eloff.

In Pierneef à La Motte restaurant:

Mother and baby by Toby Megaw – Embodying the constant love bestowed upon family and those we care for.

In the La Motte Wine Tasting Room:

Rose and Solitude by Theo Megaw – greetings guests at the entrance to the Tasting Room, their names and subtle gestures provides hints of the elegant figure’s characters.

Adanté by Theo Megaw - a beautifully feminine figure in the Rupert Vinoteque.

The Grape Picker by Toby Megaw – a tribute to the farm workers in the Boardroom.

After the Harvest by Louis Chanu – a scene celebrating the hard work during harvest with music.

Warthog by Theo Megaw.

As a toast to this unique acquaintance with art, the La Motte Sculpture Walk is concluded with a glass of the estate’s limited release La Motte Méthode Cap Classique and an elegant traditional French Madeleine under the age-old oak trees in La Motte’s garden.

The La Motte Sculpture Walk costs R80 per person and is conducted on Thursday mornings between 10:00 and 11:00. Comfortable walking shoes are recommended.

Reservations are essential and can be made online.

For information on the La Motte Museum or Sculpture Walk, please contact Museum Curator, Elzette de Beer at museum@la-motte.co.za or +27(0)21 876 8850.

For more information on La Motte, please visit www.la-motte.com or call +27 (0)21 876 8000.

More on Sculptor, Toby Megaw

Toby Megaw was born in 1965 and grew up first in Johannesburg and then Cape Town. In his early thirties, after some years as a drama and English teacher, he joined his father, Theo Megaw on the family farm inland from Knysna. Here he spent fifteen years living very simply off the grid, learning from his sculptor father. The rugged mountainous terrain, with its solid three-dimensional honesty and integrity had a profound influence on shaping him as a sculptor. He sculpts in raw clay, dug from beside the farm dam. His work is cast in bronze. He now lives and works in Muizenberg, a seaside suburb of Cape Town, with his wife, a professional musician, and their two young children.

The Blushing Bride by Toby Megaw - created on site in 2018 as a special commission and over a four-month period during the Fleurs de La Motte exhibition by Paula van Coller-Louw.

Toby Megaw’s work is exhibited by Read Contemporary galleries. His work is sought after by local and international collectors. The four-metre-high Wine Bearer at La Motte Wine Estate, Franschhoek, is his biggest work to date.

“As a sculptor I challenge myself to take the inert substance of clay, cold and still, and imbue it with life. To engage with it, be sensitive to it, allow it to find a meaningful and real expressive form. This might be still, quiet, soulful, or maybe robust, rugged and full of vigour. I work to express our humanity through physique, stance and subtle gesture; from a bent old woman, with her life experience speaking through the angles of her neck and back, to the sprightly energy of a young child, lively, pert and full of budding vitality. Shaping the clay with simple wooden batons, I strive to suggest rather than define. Sometimes this calls for determination, mustering everything to transform the clay; at other times my work is meditative. On another level, I explore how shapes and volumes relate to each other and where the lines flow through a piece. My hope is that if at all successful, my pieces will give the viewer a sense of the essential; for a moment bring them closer to the core of life.