LOT 153

AWCS CAC NAD RCA RI RSC SAA
1858 - 1938
Canadian

First Snow, Île d'Orléans
oil on canvas on board
initialed and on verso titled and inscribed "New Year 1955" on the gallery label, inscribed "Loading Wood", certified by William Watson on the Watson Art Galleries label and stamped Estate of Horatio Walker and certified by Clarence A. Gagnon
17 x 13 in, 43.2 x 33 cm

Estimate: $10,000 - $15,000 CAD

Sold for: $12,500

Preview at: Heffel Toronto – 13 Hazelton Ave

PROVENANCE
Watson Art Galleries, Montreal, #15181
Private Collection, Quebec

LITERATURE
Dennis Reid, A Concise History of Canadian Painting, 3rd edition, 2012, page 131


As a young man, Horatio Walker worked for commerical art firm Notman & Fraser in both Toronto and Philadelphia. A trip to Europe in 1882 brought him under the influence of Barbizon painter Jean-François Millet and the Dutch artists of the Hague School. In 1883 he secured the Montross Gallery as his dealer in New York, and moved there in 1885. Walker developed a long-standing pattern of spending winters in New York and summers in Quebec City, where he established a residence on Île d'Orléans in 1888. He became a keen observer of the life of the habitant people there, as seen in this quotidian scene of a huge ox hauling a load. Walker’s subject and his palette, brown and ochre-based, relates to his Hague School and Barbizon influences. His velvety brushwork is particularly appealing, as are the outstretched limbs of the towering tree, to which bright sparks of the last autumn leaves cling. Walker achieved acclaim in both Canada and the United States, and Dennis Reid states that “by 1907 he was easily the most famous Canadian-born painter, represented in most major American collections.”


Estimate: $10,000 - $15,000 CAD

All prices are in Canadian Dollars


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