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In an 1899 painting, James Ford imagined how Cape Town might look in 1999. A century later, the artist responded to Ford’s painting, celebrating the diversity and optimism of Cape Town in a newly democratic South Africa in 1999. Tellingly, both paintings feature a rainbow. The term ‘Rainbow Nation’, coined by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and used by Nelson Mandela in his inaugural address as the first President of a democratic South Africa, was a key feature of the years shortly after the first democratic elections. It represents the ideal of a diverse and unified South Africa, where all citizens, regardless of their race or background, can live in harmony, expressing an idealism that, at times, has been critiqued for being detached from the realities of post-apartheid South Africa.