The Wayside Cross

Continental Galleries, Montreal Wedding Gift to Ann Henderson from her uncle, Huntley Drummond, May 22, 1954 By descent to a Private Collection, Ontario Heffel Fine Art, auction, Toronto, 24 November 2006, lot 10 Private Collection, Toronto

Maurice Cullen always sketched outdoors, even during the coldest months while standing in snowshoes. “The Wayside Cross” captures the crisp air of the province’s frigid winter, as well as the season’s warm sunlight. Beginning in the spring of 1896, Cullen, along with William Brymner, travelled north along the Saint Lawrence river, sketching the scenic Quebec countryside up to Sainte–Anne–de–Beaupré. Cullen would repeat this excursion frequently over the next several years. This oil painting depicts a small Quebec farm, with a large wooden cross standing tall in the snow. Thousands of these ‘wayside crosses’ were erected throughout rural Quebec as early as 1534, when Jacques Cartier raised the first crosses in Canada to affirm his claim to territory. Later, many explorers and missionaries followed suit, and the custom was subsequently passed on to the first settlers who erected crosses upon opening new roads or staking land claims.