Watercolor; black ink

lithograph, printed in black with beige tint stone, handcoloured with watercolour, mounted

LAC record

Part of the Canadian Historical Prints collection. Series consists of colour lithographs from a set entitled: "Sketches in the Canadas", including views of Quebec city and environs, Montreal, Niagara Falls, Toronto, several genre portraits of Huron Indians, hunting scenes. Works by John Richard Coke Smyth; published by Thos. McLean, London. This series represents group II-a in the artist inventory. As noted in the artist file (705-55): "these are separate, coloured, and mounted pictures numbered: Coke Smyth II-1a to II-23a. The set is incomplete: II-19a [View of Montreal] is missing and II-21a [Entrance to Toronto] is on loan to the High Commissioner in London, since May 1952." Provenance is unknown. Material was acquired sometime before the initial cataloguing date of 14/12/21, written on the verso of the prints. R13133-319 (II-11a, c. 2) and R13133-324 (II-9a, c. 2) are duplicate prints, of R13133-285 (II-11a, c. 1) and R13133-289 (II-9a, c. 1), respectively. According to the artist file, these duplicates were acquired sometime before the initial cataloguing date of June 1931 (written on the catalogue card), which is different from the rest of the series.

For another set of these prints, see acc. no 1991-176, which represents group II-b in the artist inventory. As noted in the artist file, one of the copies of II-21a, "Entrance to Toronto" is part of the Macpherson collection, acquired in 1933: see acc. no. 1989-514-42. A third set of Coke Smyth's "Sketches in the Canadas" was added to the PAC collections with the acquisition of the Manoir Richelieu Collection in 1970. See acc. no. 1970-188.

Thomas McLean

sold by: Thomas Jefferys

This record was created by Anne de Stecher during an RAship for Prof. Ruth Phillips.