Although seeming very much like an image of Canada’s East Coast, this scene depicts the shores of Lake Ontario. The community of Bronte, originally a fishing village founded in 1834 at the mouth of Twelve Mile Creek, now makes up a portion of Oakville, incorporated into the city in 1962. A.J. Casson captured the scene as it would have looked nearly a century ago, depicting houses and fishing shacks in the foreground, and Bronte’s iconic red-capped lighthouse at the far end of the harbour pier, built in 1906. The original lighthouse keeper was Charles Osborne, who retained that post until just a few years before Casson produced this on-site sketch.

Irreplaceably historical, this work is a lovely and distinctive example of Casson’s documentation of Ontario’s past and character. The year 1927 would have been a thrilling time for the young artist, not yet 30. Although he had been painting with members of the Group of Seven throughout the 1920s, he had been formally invited to join the Group the summer of the previous year, filling the vacancy left by Frank Johnston’s 1921 departure.