James D. Duncan 1805-1881

Private Collection, France

Mary Allodi, Canadian Watercolours and Drawings in the Royal Ontario Museum, Royal Ontario Museum, 1974, volume 1, catalogue entries 673-732 for related works reproduced.
J. Russell Harper, Krieghoff, Toronto, 1979, pp. 20, 38, 58, 178.
Mary Allodi, Printmaking in Canada: The Earliest Views and Portraits, Royal Ontario Museum, 1980, pp. 184-185 for related works reproduced.
W.M.E. Cooke, W.H. Coverdale Collection of Candiana, Paintings, Water-Colours and Drawings, Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa, 1984, pp.64-68 for related works reproduced.
Dennis Reid, Cornelius Krieghoff, Art Gallery of Ontario, 1999, pp.66-67.
Library and Archives Canada, Peter Winkworth Collection of Canadiana, for a related work reproduced.

James Duncan was born in Coleraine, Ireland in 1806 and emigrated to Canada around 1830, settling in Montreal, where he practiced as an artist and as an art teacher. He worked primarily in watercolour but in other media as well. His work was widely reproduced in lithography and wood engraving, and a number of his views were published in the Illustrated London News and in other publications, most notably Newton Bosworth's Hochelaga Depicta of 1839. Duncan, along with Cornelius Krieghoff, was a founding member of the Montreal Society of Artists in 1847, where he exhibited a number of oil paintings. He was an original member of the Society of Canadian Artists in 1867, with whom he exhibited until 1872. Duncan also became an Associate of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1881, shortly before his death.

Dennis Reid has noted Duncan's close relationship with Cornelius Krieghoff in Montreal in the late 1840s, as well as their proposed partnership to paint a large-scale panorama of Canada, including the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence river, announced in July 1851. Reid has also noted that in the late 1840s, "portraits of fancy sleighs became a popular subject for artistic commission in Montreal." Another well-known art historian, J. Russell Harper, noted that Duncan "painted many Montreal subjects with genre groupings reminiscent of Krieghoff's" . Harper has also noted that during the Montreal Society of Artists exhibition in 1847, James Duncan's "oil views of Montreal were preferred by some to those of Krieghoff". Duncan's oil paintings are relatively rare and these two paintings remained unrecorded until they were discovered by Sotheby's Paris office.

The Promenade sur le St. Laurent, Canada is a sleighing "portrait" possibly commissioned by the owner of the sleigh in question. Many British officers and colonial officials belonged to sleigh clubs when they were stationed in Canada. Many representations exist showing British officers and their companions undertaking winter sleigh excursions in the vicinity of Montreal, including such popular outings as the crossing of the St. Lawrence river on the ice bridge to visit Longeuil or the Indian village of Caughnawaga. In this painting, the elaborately painted sleigh and four, with the horses' livery decorated by plumes and bright colours, contrasts sharply with the humble habitant traineau passing in the opposite direction. In the background, more sleighs can be seen, as well as the looming outline of Mount Royal. The subject matter can be found in other Duncan works, including a watercolour in the James Duncan album now held at Library and Archives Canada, dated 1847, which also shows an elaborately-decorated four person sleigh on the river ice.

Halte des Hurons sur un ȋlot du St. Laurent, Près de Montreal, Canada, is comparable to many of Duncan's compositions which show First Nations members set against similar backgrounds, such as a work in the Royal Ontario Museum, or another in the W.H. Coverdale Collection of Canadiana at Library and Archives Canada. This encampment scene is reminiscent of the lithographer view entitled "Montreal from the Indian Encamping Ground" drawn on stone by Duncan and lithographed by George Matthews in 1843. This paintings itself most closely resembles a view of Caughnawaga rather than one of Montreal.

We thank Jim Burant for his contribution to this fine essay.