signed, titled and dated 1829 on the reverse
12.5 × 20 in (31.8 × 50.8 cm) (sheet)
Selected Works from the Estate of the late Mrs. Ward. C. Pitfield, Joyner, auction, Toronto, 1 December 1986, lot 23
Private Collection, Toronto
Charles P. de Volpi, The Niagara Peninsula: A Pictorial Record, 1687-1880, Sherbrooke, 1966, unpaginated, The Falls of Niagara, aquatint illustrated plate 21
Mary Allodi, Canadian Watercolours and Drawings in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, 1974, unpaginated, see plate 434 for a similar view by James Pattison Cockburn titled Horseshoe Fall from Goat Island, 1831 (Includes a picnicking group on Goat Island. Engraved and published by Ackermann & Co., London, 1833 and 1857.)
James Pattison Cockburn studied as a cadet at the Royal Military Academy in southeast London from 1793-95. As part of his training he took courses in topographic drawing from renowned watercolourist and engraver Paul Sandby. He learned to observe and record topography with precision, capturing even the smallest details of defensive structures and fortifications. Upon completing his military studies, Cockburn was posted to several areas, including East India and Europe, where he assimilated the influences of the Dutch and Italian landscape schools. He was then posted to Canada, first stationed in Quebec from November 1822 to June 1823, and then again from August 1826 to August 1832, during a calmer period, which allowed him to paint. Most of his watercolours, such as the sublime view depicted in Horse Shoe Fall of Niagara from Goat Island, were made during his second posting. His duties as a commander of the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery required that he travel widely in Lower and Upper Canada on annual inspection tours. During these tours Cockburn sketched constantly, producing a great number of drawings and watercolours covering the country from Quebec to Niagara, documenting the landscape and the buildings of the period with painstaking detail. Shortly after he returned to London, in 1833 he produced sets of hand-coloured aquatint prints of Quebec City and Niagara Falls based on these watercolours.
