STRATHCONA & MOUNT ROYAL, Lord (Sir Donald Smith)(1898, No. 2)
Description:
Bust-length. Oil on canvas, 30 5/16 x 25 9/16 ins (77 x 65 cm), signed upper right ‘Muller-Ury’.
Location:
Private Collection, Toronto, Canada (2009).
Provenance:
Bonhams & Butterfield, 20 Hazelton Avenue, Toronto, ON M5R 2E2, Canada. Sale No. 17549, Canadian Art Auction, 30th November 2009, Lot 210. Est: CAD $1000-1500. Sold for CAD $2750.00.
Sir Donald Alexander Smith was born in Scotland on August 6, 1820. He was one of the Canadian commercial pioneers, railroad builders and investors. He became a Canadian High Commissioner and was raised to the peerage in 1897. He owned a beautiful stone house in Dorchester Street, Montreal in 1883 which was often used in later years by diplomatic bodies. He died on January 21, 1914.
Bibliography of sitter:
Beckles Willson, The Life of Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, 2 Vols., The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1915.
Donna McDonald, Lord Strathcona: A Biography of Donald Alexander Smith, 1996.
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A virtual replica of the 1898 portrait and probably painted before he sent that picture with that of Lord Mount Stephen to James J. Hill in St. Paul. He possibly made this when in Scotland, as his letter to Hill of June 13, 1898 said, “I am asked to pass few weeks in Scotland where his Lordship intends to sitt (sic) for another (maybe 3/4 length) portrait…”
According to the auction house, the picture was shipped to them from one of their UK offices.
