PROVENANCE
Acquired Theodore Doucet in Montreal, circa late 1800s
By descent to the present Private Collection, USA

LITERATURE
Hughes de Jouvancourt, Cornelius Krieghoff, 1971, a similar oil entitled Indian Hunters Around a Fire, in the collection of The Public Archives of Canada, reproduced page 36
J. Russell Harper, Krieghoff, 1999, page 137

Cornelius Krieghoff’s great skill at creating complex genre scenes is clearly seen in this superb canvas. The native hunters are depicted taking their ease around the fire, under a striking large boulder known as Big Rock. Art historian Russell Harper notes, “One of Krieghoff’s greatest series of paintings, large in format, brilliantly coloured, and highly romantic, pictures Indians beside a huge boulder popularly known as the ‘Big Rock.’” Such scenes included the realistic and meticulous depiction of native dress and activities, and here he paints the distinctive moccasins, clothing, pipes and rifles of the hunters. Although their poses are natural, and their activity part of their lifestyle, these complex tableau scenes were carefully and artfully composed in the studio.

Krieghoff created a natural stage for the group on the bank of the river backed by Big Rock - an enclosed and protected space. He also placed them in the greater landscape context by including a backdrop of an expansive view out to faraway misty mountains. In this scene is encoded a viewpoint of First Nations people as noble and free, unaffected by the artificialities of civilization, and living at one with the natural world. The bounty of nature is all around them, providing for their needs of food, shelter and clothing, easily taken by using their expert hunting skills. However, the challenges and discomfort of contending with the harsher side of nature were excluded from these romanticized scenes.

Krieghoff was quite familiar with First Nations people, and from 1853 to 1863, when he was residing in Quebec City, met the Hurons at Lorette. Unlike the Mohawks of Caughnawaga, the men of Lorette continued their traditional hunting and trapping, and worked as guides for hunting and fishing parties. Krieghoff snowshoed with Huron guides to Lake St. Charles and was known to be a good hunter and marksman who could always pick up trails in the woods. One of his best friends was a Huron chief who spoke the traditional language of his people.

Not only are paintings such as this fascinating for their depiction of First Nations people in early Canada, they are also virtuoso landscape paintings. Huron Hunters at Big Rock is painted with precise draughtmanship – from the minutiae of leaves and blades of grass to the moss-capped boulder, we perceive Krieghoff’s keen observational eye. His colour palette is rich, with glowing autumn hues in the trees, a turquoise sky and blue highlights in the rock. The natural splendour of this wild Quebec landscape is alluring.

One can easily see how such images would have appealed to Krieghoff’s primary clients, the anglophone merchants and military men of Montreal and Quebec. While in Quebec City, Krieghoff mixed with well-off English residents; he fished, hunted and caroused with them. He was gregarious in nature and shrewdly practical. The cultivation of his clients allowed him to continue his life as an artist at a time when few others could. Military officers, some from well-known British families, acquired his work as reminders of their life in Canada.

This work is an outstanding example of Krieghoff’s tableau paintings of First Nations peoples. Among the impressive collection of Krieghoff works in the Royal Ontario Museum is a similar oil entitled Indian Scouts at Big Rock. Huron Hunters at Big Rock possesses an excellent provenance that can be traced back generations to its original acquisition in Montreal by Theodore Doucet, a contemporary of Krieghoff. This rediscovered painting has been returned to Canada, and as it has remained in the same family, this is the first time it has been offered for sale since its original acquisition by Doucet.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars

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