This atmospheric painting is a view of Sillery, a borough of Quebec City, from the historic Plains of Abraham where, in a decisive battle in 1759, the British under General James Wolfe defeated the French and their Indigenous allies under General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm. However, this painting is a purely aesthetic view of this historic area, and a fine example of Maurice Cullen’s consummate abilities with an Impressionist style. As well as being exposed to French Impressionism during his studies in France, Cullen went on sketching trips with Canadian Impressionist James Wilson Morrice—they were known to have worked together in Beaupré, Quebec, in the winter of 1897. In this view of Sillery, Cullen’s use of Impressionist colour and light is exquisite. While mixing colour tones on his palette, Cullen was known to have kept his colours as separate as possible to retain the vibrancy of the pigments, and he built up his surfaces with the technique of impasto, mixing paint directly on the surface of the canvas.