This triple portrait depicts Ursus Victor Borer (1832-1910), Ludwina Borer-Müller (1839-1903) – the artist’s father’s youngest sister – and Leo Joseph Borer-Müller (1879-1966), the artist’s first cousin. Ludwina and her husband Urs had emigrated from Switzerland to St. Paul, Minnesota in the 1870s. After Ludwina died, Urs Borer returned to Switzerland and lived his last years in Andermatt.
The figures of Ludwina and her son are stiffly posed and maybe additions to a single portrait of Ursus Borer begun in the winter of 1888 and completed in the summer of 1889.
A 1920s photograph of 161 West College Avenue, St. Paul, MN. The house was not far from Hill’s mansion on Summit Avenue.
It could well have been Urs Borer who brought his nephew to the attention of James J. Hill. It is known that in August 1900, when Muller-Ury was in staying in St Paul and traveling on Hill’s yacht Wacouta on the Great Lakes, The Adams Express Company tried to deliver a large portrait of Hill to the artist at the address of his uncle and aunt Urs and Ludwina Borer of 161 West College Avenue (James J. Hill Papers) but could not as the address was written wrongly. Sadly the house has been demolished.
