Private Collection, Montreal
By decent to the present Private Collection, Arizona
Literature
Hugues de Jouvancourt, “Cornelius Krieghoff”, Toronto, 1973, pages 1, 46 and 59
As a recently settled colony on the cusp of confederation in the nineteenth century, Canada was still building an identity in its production of arts and culture. At the forefront of this narrative was Cornelius Krieghoff, a Dutch immigrant enamoured with the daily lives of Quebec’s habitants.
Born in Amsterdam in 1815, the artist emigrated to North America in 1837. Having studied the work of European and Dutch Old Masters, Krieghoff sought to establish a body of work akin to his native Dutch culture and capture the liveliness of daily life—sleighing, tobogganing, playing cards and the unique experience of living in proximity to Indigenous communities. Hughes de Jouvancourt explains that Krieghoff was “one of the pioneers of painting in Canada” and that he “championed a human ideal by revealing, through his art, the way of life of a small minority belonging to the humblest social class, and with whom he spent much of his life—the habitant.”
“Ladies and Habitant Sleighing in Winter” exhibits the hallmarks of a classic snowy landscape by the artist. The habitant, clad with traditional blue toque and a warm buffalo coat, leads a bright red horse-drawn sleigh through the idyllic snow-laden mountain landscape, carrying two elegantly dressed ladies in their fine winter apparel. The travellers are distinctive in the calm landscape, the brightly coloured sleigh and garments capture the leisure of traversing through the natural landscape. The habitant way of life in Quebec was unique within North America and the artist found parallels, as well as a comfortable familiarity with his own native rural Dutch traditions. A highly sought-after subject matter in this period, the winter sleighing scene was one the artist would return to often and continues to be a coveted token of early Canadian art, culture, and life.
