signed and dated ‘2 June 1908” lower left; signed, titled and dated on a gallery label on the backing on the reverse
13.25 × 10.5 in (33.7 × 26.7 cm)
Auction Estimate:$5,000 - $7,000
Sale date:December 6, 2023
Price Realized
$5,520
(including Buyer's Premium)
Provenance
Morris Gallery, Toronto
Acquired by the present Private Collection, October 1968
Exhibited
“Collector’s Canada: Selections from a Toronto Private Collection”, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; travelling to Musée du Québec, Quebec City; Vancouver Art Gallery; Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, 14 May 1988‒7 May 1989, no. 28
Literature
Dennis Reid, “Collector’s Canada: Selections from a Toronto Private Collection”, Toronto, 1988, no. 28, reproduced page 57
A painter of the social and political elite in Toronto and Montreal, Robert Harris is considered Canada’s most renowned historical portrait artist. Born in Wales in 1849, Harris grew up on his father’s farm before moving to Prince Edward Island in 1856. He developed an interest in art at a young age, often sketching images he saw in magazines. During a trip to Liverpool in 1867, Harris visited the local museum, where he independently learned anatomy and proportion by sketching from plaster casts. Harris’ commissioned painting early in his career, “The Fathers of Confederation’ (1883), quickly established his reputation as one of the most distinguished portrait painters in Canada. Between 1889 and 1896, he painted over 55 commissioned portraits. This self-portrait dates to 1908, when the artist was heavily influenced by impressionism. The loose, detached brushstrokes in a decorative palette of greens and purples are repeated in his clothing, his hair and in the background, thus attesting to this moment in Harris’ career.
