Two Masterworks by Frances Anne Hopkins in the Spring Live Auction

Posted May 9, 2025 by Rob Cowley & filed under Cowley Abbott Updates.

SELECT MASTERWORKS OF CANADIAN & INTERNATIONAL ART (1)

Watch Lydia Abbott discuss two magnificent artworks by Frances Anne Hopkins

The two watercolours in the May 28th live auction represent major subjects of Frances Anne Hopkins’s artistic oeuvre.

Canoes in a Fog, Lake Superior, is one of several sketches that Hopkins made during her first trip on Lake Superior in July 1864 and formed the basis for the first painting by her to be accepted for exhibition at the Royal Academy in London in 1869 (now in the collection of the Glenbow Museum). Five sketches related to the painting are known to exist and Canoes in a Fog, Lake Superior, is believed to be the first large-scale work prepared. The hues in this watercolour are remarkably bright, and the detail is exquisite, recording the moment when canoeing transformed from being a means of travel and the transport of goods, into a leisure time pursuit.

Lumber Raft on the Ottawa, signed and dated 1886, represents another Canadian theme which Frances Anne Hopkins chose to represent on several occasions. Hopkins would have likely encountered such timber rafts during her journeys on the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers. This watercolour shows one of the large timber rafts floating down the river, possibly on Lake of Two Mountains, and is more atmospheric than many of the other works of this subject, with the fog on the river and the cooking fires surrounded by the crewmen. It offers a romantic and enchanting insight into a particular aspect of nineteenth-century Canadian life.

Cowley Abbott is pleased to present these two masterworks for sale on May 28th in the live auction of Select Masterworks of Canadian & International Art. We hope that you will visit the auction preview at the gallery beginning Friday, May 16th to enjoy these rare works on paper by Frances Anne Hopkins.