Wharf at Ste. Famille, Île d’Orléans, 1890

Private Collection, Quebec Sotheby’s, auction, Toronto, 17 May 1989, lot 10 as “The Wharf of Ste. Famille, Île d’Orléans” Galerie Dominion, Montreal (inventory number G8438) as “Wharf” Private Collection, British Columbia Private Collection

Possibly “Royal Canadian Academy of Arts”, Toronto Art Gallery, 6 March 1891, no. 82 as “Schooner at Low Tide” “Forging the Path: The Forerunners (1870‒1920)”, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, Ontario, 2 October 2010‒30 January 2011, as “Wharf at Sainte Famille, Île d’Orléans” (circa 1890)

Janet Braide, ‘Les murales de Brymner à l'Île d'Orléans’, “Vie des Arts”, 24:7 (Winter 1979-80), pages 62-65, 93-94 William Brymner, ‘Village Life in Three Countries’, “The University Magazine” (Montreal) XI (April 1912), page 309 Katerina Atanassova, “Forging the Path: The Forerunners (1870‒1920)”, Kleinburg, 2010, reproduced page 6 Madeleine Landry, “Beaupré 1896‒1904: Lieu d’inspiration d’une peinture identitaire”, Québec, 2014

William Brymner frequently worked on the Lower Saint Lawrence, especially around Baie-Saint-Paul at the mouth of the Gouffre River. In 1885, newly returned from studies abroad, he painted a group of children in a field near Baie-Saint-Paul, a canvas reminiscent of his famous “A Wreath of Flowers” (National Gallery of Canada, XXX and 19), painted at Runswick, Yorkshire, the previous summer. He returned to Baie-Saint-Paul frequently over the years exhibiting canvases and watercolours of the region. In March 1891 he submitted “Low Tide, Baie St. Paul” and “Schooner at Low Tide” to the Royal Canadian Academy exhibition in Toronto and in April, the same two works were shown in the Spring Exhibition of the Art Association of Montreal, together with a work titled “At the Mouth of the Gouffre”. All the titles resulted from Brymner painting during the previous summer on the waterfront rather than in the surrounding valley. Without trains or adequate roads, the river was the principal north shore highway from Quebec City to Tadoussac and schooners were a major means of transport. Wharfs were constructed to accommodate larger steamboats at high tide. A schooner with sails all raised - possibly to dry them - is the principle subject of this superb painting. The boat sits on shore, its bow tied to the wharf, and at the right one glimpses the river and the houses and hills on the far shore. This painting was sold at auction in 1989 as “The Wharf of Ste. Famille, Île d’Orléans” with the title being inscribed on the verso, an inscription no longer on the painting. There is no record of Brymner painting on the Île d’Orléans before 1898, though it was of easy access from Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré on the north shore. Across from Baie-Saint-Paul is the low rise of Île-aux-Coudres. Madeleine Landry’s insightful book on Beaupré offers a number of possible options for the identification of this site and she quotes Brymner’s 1912 article: “As I used to see it in the evening, from Ste. Anne de Beaupré, or Chateau Richer, Ste. Famille had for years fascinated me. Long after the shadow of the Laurentians falls over the north shore of the St. Lawrence, that part of the Island of Orleans occupied by Ste. Famille is still in brilliant sunlight, and the procession of little farmhouses and barns, running along the cliffs from either end of the parish, glows like something moulten.” Brymner painted several watercolours and oils of boats at low tide along this part of the Saint Lawrence. In 1899 he was commissioned to paint mural decorations for the dining room in the country residence of his friend, the businessman and amateur artist Charles Porteous near Saint-Pétronille at the south-west tip of Île d’Orléans. The decorations in the house, Les Groisardières, depict rural life on the island through the four seasons. The “summer” wall includes a fish weir and sailing boats by a wharf, similar to “Moored Boats”. We extend our thanks to Charles Hill, Canadian art historian, for contributing the preceding essay.