Riverside Promenade, circa 1890

Collection of F.R. Heaton Collection of Gerald Moses, Toronto Estate of Barbara Mercer, Toronto Cowley Abbott, auction, Toronto, 24 September 2020, lot 86 Private Collection, Toronto

Jerrold A. Morris, “100 Years of Canadian Drawings”, Methuen, 1980, reproduced page 53

This Morrice drawing is unique in his oeuvre; the closest example, a “Street Scene”, drawn in charcoal on laid paper, belongs to the Musée national des Beaux-Arts du Québec and is quite different: it is a city scene, while here we are on a country path high above a large river (the Seine?). In both cases, though, the artist has cut down and re-used an earlier drawing: here the back shows the head of a man, there a portion of a male nude. These old drawings could date from Morrice’s early months in Europe, but the rectos, which cannot be localized, are also more difficult to date. If the street scene is mirrored in a 1897 sketchbook, the present drawing has no counterpart. We extend our thanks to Lucie Dorais, Canadian art historian and author of “J.W. Morrice” (National Gallery of Canada, 1985) for contributing the preceding paragraph.