Le Sanctus à la maison, circa 1897

Christopher Varley, Toronto Acquired by the present Private Collection, June 2001

Jean-René Ostiguay, “Charles Huot”, Ottawa, 1979, unpaginated, for a larger version of the subject

Born in Quebec City, Charles Edouard Huot moved to Paris at age nineteen to attend the École des Beaux-arts and study in the workshop of Alexandre Cabanel. He participated in numerous exhibitions there, including the1876 Salon. He married Louise Schlachter in 1885, returned to Canada in 1886 on the promise of a large commission of painting the Church of the Holy Saviour in Quebec City. This project firmly established Huot’s career, and it led to many more commissions from religious and political groups. In “Le Sanctus à la maison”, Huot depicts the more pared-down subject of a French-Canadian interior scene featuring a woman at prayer. Kneeling on the floor, the woman rests her arms on a small chair and holds a rosary in her right hand. The room, though minimally decorated, contains many household objects and subtle details that form a narrative to the setting. The woman appears to have been in the middle of preparing a meal when she knelt down to pray; we can see a bowl of potatoes and a knife beside her, potato skins and cabbage leaves on the floor to the right, and a partially cut cabbage on the bench by the windowsill. Behind her, inside the lit wood stove, is a lidded cast iron pot. Just below the stove is a white cat and a kitten drinking milk from a bowl. In the background of the room we see more cooking tools hanging on the walls, a steep ladder staircase and a door to the outside. The open window to the right shows a glimpse of a farm on a sunny day. Huot has created an intimate scene that gives a view into an authentic rural Quebecois household of the time.