LONDON.- The earliest known work by an artist acknowledged as one of today’s leading international female painters, Marlene Dumas, whose pictures sells for millions, will be auctioned by Bonhams on March 23rd in a sale of South African Art. Dumas painted this charming picture of a girl for a student friend, Alida Louw, on the occasion of Alida’s 16th birthday in 1971. At the time they were both pupils at Bloemhof, an exclusive High School for Girls in the beautiful village of Stellenbosch in the Cape Winelands. The work would be of no great significance were it not for the fact that the then budding schoolgirl artist, Marlene Dumas, now has an international reputation. The picture is estimated to sell for £7,000 to £10,000. The birthday painting was created four decades before Dumas’ international reputation assured her work of six figure