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Lumber Raft on the Ottawa, 1886 by Frances Anne Hopkins

Artwork by Frances Anne Hopkins, Lumber Raft on the Ottawa, 1886

Frances Anne Hopkins
Lumber Raft on the Ottawa, 1886

watercolour
signed with initials and dated 1886 lower right
15.5 x 22.5 in ( 39.4 x 57.2 cm ) ( sight )

Auction Estimate: $50,000.00$30,000.00 - $50,000.00

Price Realized $48,000.00
Sale date: May 28th 2025

Provenance:
Private Collection
Sotheby's Canada, auction, Toronto, 14-15 May 1973, lot 53
John Rogers, Toronto
By descent to the present Private Collection
Literature:
Janet E. Clarke, "Frances Anne Hopkins 1838-1919: Canadian Scenery", Thunder Bay, 1990, see page 77 for a similar work in the collection of the Royal Ontario Museum
Thomas Schultze, "Frances Anne Hopkins, Images from Canada", Manotick, 2008, see pages 59-61 for similar works in the collection of Library and Archives Canada and the Royal Ontario Museum
"Lumber Raft on the Ottawa", signed and dated 1886, represents another Canadian theme which Frances Anne Hopkins chose to represent on several occasions. There are at least six such works, with the earliest being an 1862 oil painting sold at auction in 2012. The Royal Ontario Museum acquired an undated but exquisite watercolour, possibly from family descendants, in 1962, while Library and Archives Canada owns another undated watercolour of the same subject. Two watercolours of the same subject are still in family hands, with one dated 1868. Hopkins would have likely encountered such timber rafts frequently during her journeys on the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers, although by the 1860s they were encountered less frequently than in their heyday in the 1830s and 1840s. Hopkins made a return visit to Canada in 1884, and this may have ignited a renewed interest in Canadian subject matter, as she exhibited a Canadian scene at the Royal Academy the same year as this work. It shows one of the large timber rafts floating down the river, possibly on Lake of Two Mountains, and is more atmospheric than many of the other works, with the fog on the river and the cooking fires surrounded by the crewmen, likely preparing to enjoy their breakfast meal. Although a late work, it offers a romantic and enchanting insight into a particular aspect of nineteenth-century Canadian life.

The work of Frances Anne Hopkins was the subject of the major exhibition "Frances Anne Hopkins, 1838–1919: Canadian Scenery", organized by the Thunder Bay Art Gallery in 1990. More recently, the life of Hopkins has been the subject of several articles and essays, as well as two full-length studies, Thomas Schultze’s "Frances Anne Hopkins, Images from Canada" (2008) and Mary-Ellen Weller-Smith’s recent biography "Frances Anne Hopkins: Hudson’s Bay Company Wife, Voyageurs’ Artist" (2022).

We extend our thanks to Jim Burant, art historian and curator, for contributing the preceding essay.

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Frances Anne Hopkins
(1838 - 1919)

HighlightsWatch Artist

Born in England, she married Edward Martin Hopkins, a world traveller, in 1858. They travelled to Canada where her husband had a responsible position with the Hudson’s Bay Company. He was required to travel often and she accompanied him on his journeys. Frances Hopkins painted many genre scenes but also a remarkable series of paintings of voyageurs. Many of them were believed done during her trip with the Red River expedition of 1870 headed by Col. G.J. Wolseley. She sketched in oils and watercolours and her Canadian sketch books became the property of the Public Archives of Canada as did her exceptionally fine and detailed Canadian canvases. Most of her work was untitled but she did sign them with her initials F.A.H.

On the Red River expedition she was the only woman. Grave Lee Nute in her well documented and well illustrated article on the artist for ‘The Beaver’ described one of her paintings as follows, “One very appealing picture, which has been reproduced many times, shows a typical bark canoe, beautifully decorated in bow and stern, manned by eight voyageurs, passing the foot of a great shoulder of rock, down which runs a rill in successive waterfalls. A few spruces or balsams can be seen glimpsed above the rock. White water-lilies are attracting the attention of Mrs. Hopkins, for whom a voyageur is picking lilies, while Hopkins looks on, smoking his pipe. The whole conception of the picture is faithful to reality, yet most artistic. Even the reflection of the canoe and its occupants in the clear water of some northern lake is perfection itself.”

The Hopkins returned to England on his retirement sometime after 1870. They lived in London and later at Oxfordshire. Her husband died in 1894 and she died in London in 1918.

Source: "A Dictionary of Canadian Artists, Volume II”, compiled by Colin S. MacDonald, Canadian Paperbacks Publishing Ltd, Ottawa, 1979