Study for Don’t Be Afraid, circa 1878 by Charlotte Mount Brock Schreiber

Provenance:
Estate of the Artist
By descent to Mrs. D.H.C. Mason, Toronto
By descent to Ottilie Marjorie Beatty, Toronto
D&E Lake, Toronto
Acquired by the present Private Collection, 1983

Exhibited:
“Home Truths”, Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa; travelling to Mississauga Library Arts Centre; Rodman Hall, Saint Catharines, 4 September 1997‒22 February 1998 as Springfield on the Credit, oil on canvas board, circa 1884
“Embracing Canada: Landscapes from Krieghoff to the Group of Seven”, Vancouver Art Gallery; travelling to the Glenbow Museum, Calgary; Art Gallery of Hamilton, 30 October 2015‒25 September 2016 as Study for Don't be Afraid, circa 1878
“Our Children: Reflections of Childhood in Historical Canadian Art”, Varley Art Gallery, Markham, Ontario, 13 April‒23 June 2019, no cat. no., as “Sketch for Don't be Afraid”, circa 1875

Literature:
Margaret Fallis, “Charlotte Schreiber, R.C.A. 1834‒1922” (MA Thesis Research Paper, Carleton University, Ottawa, 1985), pages 45, 52, no. 35 as “Spring field on the Credit”, oil on canvas, 20.5 x 25.5 cm
Dennis Reid, “Collector’s Canada: Selections from a Toronto Private Collection,” Toronto, 1988, page 32
Joan Murray, “Home Truths,” Toronto, 1997, reproduced page 100 as “Sketch for Spring field on the Credit”, oil on paper, circa 1884
Tobi Bruce, ‘Revisiting Charlotte Schreiber’, in Ian Thom, et al., “Embracing Canada: Landscapes from Krieghoff to the Group of Seven,” Vancouver /London, 2015, pages 36‒39, reproduced page 41, caption page 203, as “Study for Don't be Afraid”, circa 1878

To prepare her large paintings Charlotte Schreiber worked out her compositions in small oil sketches. A study for her Academy Diploma Picture, “The Croppy Boy: Confessions of an Irish Patriot” is in the National Gallery of Canada (acc. no. 42261) and two oil sketches are known for her canvas “Don’t Be Afraid” (see lot 131), for which the artist’s three stepchildren apparently posed. Comparison of the two sketches with the final canvas provides important insights into the evolution of the painting. In this sketch the boys wear brown, Red River jackets with red sashes and the stockings of the boy at the rear are red. The young girl wears a yellow jacket and bonnet trimmed with red and a green skirt with lovely pink striped stockings. The tones of the unpainted sled complement her jacket as do the basket and satchel on the snow lower right. The snowy hill, with a few saplings suggested top centre, rises to a bare crest upper left. The landscape here more closely approximates the background in the canvas with “The Old Print Shop” in New York in the 1960s (see lot 131).

The National Gallery’s sketch is closer in composition to the final canvas (see lot 131). The young girl wears a red coat and bonnet with a blue skirt, purple striped stockings and boots. The gloves in the snow at the left and the satchel and basket lower right are absent in this sketch, the spaces filled by dead flowers and grasses showing through the snow. The figures are more finished and less sketchily treated and the stump of a tree anchors the composition upper left. This tree stump is further developed in the final canvas but the colouring is altered again and the configuration of the snow surrounding the figures is further developed. In the canvas the green sled is more precariously balanced at the edge of the drop lower right and the tracks of the sled defined. Schreiber worked out her composition combining elements from both sketches in the final work.

We extend our thanks to Charles Hill, Canadian art historian, former Curator of Canadian Art at the National Gallery of Canada and author of “The Group of Seven‒Art for a Nation”, for his assistance in researching this artwork and for contributing the preceding essay