Purchased from the artist
By descent to the current Private Collection, Ontario
Exhibited
“Royal Canadian Academy of Arts”, Art Gallery of Toronto, 1922, No. 101
Literature
“Catalogue of the Forty-Third Exhibition of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts Opening on November the Seventeenth, 1921, Closing on January the Second, 1922”, Art Gallery of Toronto, 1921, reproduced
Charles Beale, “Manly MacDonald: Interpreter of Old Ontario,” Napanee, 2010, pages 24 and 27
Manly MacDonald spent much of his childhood farming and fishing in the Ontario countryside. His family became commercial fishers on the Bay of Quinte, where he learned how to make and mend fishing nets. He and his three brothers also fished through the ice during winter. MacDonald had a fascination with all types of boats; he enjoyed sailing as well as watching steamships and wartime vessels. In his travels as a young adult, he often painted boats in and out of harbours, in Ontario, Massachusetts, Maine, Nova Scotia and overseas. Although the semi-impressionistic painter is most known for his scenes of work- horses and rural Ontario farm life, his sailboat and harbour scenes form a significant body of work and serve to document his regional and international travels.
Although its exhibition label titles the painting as “Montreal Fishing Boats”, the canvas was exhibited as “Venetian Fishing Boats”, the vessels and their sails bearing strong similarity to those encountered in the region of the island of Chioggia in the Venice Lagoon. MacDonald would have likely visited this area during his second scholarship from the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1920, the travels taking the painter and his family through France, Italy, Spain and Great Britain. We extend our thanks to Canadian art historians Sandra Paikowsky and Charles Hill for their assistance in the research related to this artwork.
