The Habitant at Home, 1873 by William Raphael

Provenance:
McCready Gallery, Toronto
Albert Latner, Toronto
Acquired by the present Private Collection, August 1974

Exhibited:
“Retrospective Exhibition William Raphael (1833-1914)”, Walter Klinkhoff Gallery, Montreal, 7-21 September 1996, no.5

Literature:
Sharon Rose Goelman, “William Raphael, R.C.A. (1833-1914)” (M.A. thesis, Concordia University, 1978) pages 59, 128-129, 176-177, 350, no. 162, as “The Habitant”
Sharon Rose Goelman, “William Raphael, R.C.A. (1833-1914)”, Walter Kinkhoff Gallery, Montreal, 1996, reproduced page 7

Born in Nakel, Prussia in 1833, William Raphael studied at the Royal Academy of Art in Berlin and in 1857 emigrated to Montreal, where, like so many of his fellow Montreal artists, he began working for the noted photographer William Notman. A portrait, genre, still life and landscape painter, William Raphael, is possibly best known for his rollicking paintings of people gathering at Montreal’s Bonsecours Market, possibly inspired by the paintings of James Duncan. Yet he painted numerous small paintings of Canadian “characters” as he titled two paintings he exhibited in the third exhibition of Montreal’s Society of Canadian Artists in March 1871. His subjects included habitants variously occupied at different tasks, an organ grinder, a peddlar, a flower vendor, a herb seller and a newspaper vendor, among others.

While titled “The Habitant at Home” in the 1996 Raphael exhibition at Galerie Walter Klinkhoff in Montreal, it would appear he is in fact an urban coachman, as identified by his coat, rather than a rural worker. Despite the extreme heat visible in the pot belly stove at the right, the moustached figure sits enfolded in his coat carving a handle for his homemade cane, his clay pipe resting in his left hand. His solid wooden chair sits on a catalogne runner on a wood floor. His blue coat is framed by the red clothing on the line above him and the red of the hot fire. The artist has signed and dated the painting on what appears to be a container for the ashes while a coal bucket sits closer the stove.

Raphael painted a number of variants of these single figure studies but none are true replicas. Each differs in detail and mood and are sensitive, intimate characterizations of his fellow Québécois.

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.