Quebec From The Chateau

London: Thomas McLean, 1840. Hand-coloured lithograph, mounted on publisher's card. Image size: 10 5/16 x 15 3/16 inches. Card size: 17 7/8 x 21 7/8 inches. A striking image from Smyth's rare suite of hand-colored lithographs of Canada, executed while Smyth's patron, 1st Earl of Durham, was Governor General for British North America.

Smyth was a British artist and traveler. When he was thirty, Smyth was hired to be the drawing-master of the three daughters of the Earl of Durham, the Governor General of British North America, who is this book's dedicatee. While the Earl of Durham was on his mission to the Canadas, likely from May to November (truncated) of 1838, Smyth drew his impressions of nineteenth-century Canadian life and its landscape. The 23 plates after his sketches depict First Nations peoples such as the Huron who lived on the St. Lawrence River; scenes of hunting buffalo and moose; the ports of Montreal and Toronto; the American fort on the Niagara; war scenes; waterfalls; city-views of Quebec; and a scene of Native blanket-trading. The drawings were excuted at a pivotal moment of tumult in Canadian history: the Earl was in Canada to suppress a rebellion, which broke out again as soon as he returned to Europe. Smyth's views are delicately rendered and coloured, exhibiting a distinct style. Upon his return to Europe, Smyth published illustrations of European costume and his travels in the Middle-East, including numerous works on Turkey. Abbey writes that Smyth's Sketches was advertised in the Publisher's Circular in 1840 at six pounds, six shillings for "plain" and at eight pounds, eight shillings for a coloured and mounted issue. However, Abbey adds that "the book must also have been issued with the plates coloured, but unmounted," in other words, bound. Sabin and Siebert suggest the coloured and mounted portfolio issue was later than the "plain" and Abbey's coloured but bound issue, as the portfolio copies lack the dedication leaf to the Earl of Durham, who died on July 28, 1840. One can deduce that the so-called "deluxe" coloured and mounted issue, which in actuality lacks a leaf compared to the others, was produced after the Earl's death.

Abbey Travel II, 625. Gagnon I:3341. Lande 2215. Sabin 85203. Spendlove, p. 42, pl. 65. Stanton/Tremaine 2549. Tooley 460. (Inventory #: 42199)