Lumber Raft on the Ottawa, 1886

Private Collection 

Sotheby's Canada, auction, Toronto, 14-15 May 1973, lot 53 

John Rogers, Toronto 

By descent to the present Private Collection

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.