A View in the Laurentian Mountains, near Québec

Artist Robert Seldon Duncanson American, 1821–1872

Date1865

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions9 3/4 x 17 in. (24.8 x 43.2 cm)
Frame: 14 3/4 x 22 x 2 in. (37.5 x 55.9 x 5.1 cm)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineGift of Peter A. Vogt

Object numberG.74.4.1

On View

On view

Label TextThe son of free, mixed-race parents who migrated north from Virginia after the American Revolution, Duncanson trained in the family trade of house painting. He established a successful career as a landscape painter in Cincinnati, where he was active in the abolitionist community.

After the outbreak of the Civil War, Duncanson sought refuge from the political turmoil and anti-Black fervor in Cincinnati (on the border of the Confederacy). He traveled north temporarily into Canada, where he continued his profession as a leading landscape painter. Duncanson exhibited his landscapes in Montreal and is credited with inspiring a younger generation of Canadian landscape painters. This serene Canadian landscape portrays a distant boat on a lake, just north of the Saint Lawrence River.
[L. Applebaum, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," 2025]Provenance**Created United States [or Canada?], 1865; collection of the artist. Peter A. Vogt (1926–2013), Lakeview, New York; given to NCMA, 1974.Published References"Recent Acquisitions" (exhibition catalogue), North Carolina Museum of Art Bulletin 12, no. 3 (March 1974), listed no. 3, illus. (b-w). 18.

American Paintings from the Collection of the North Carolina Museum of Art (brochure) (Charlotte: Mint Museum of Art, 1975), no. 12 (titled Montreal).

"Robert S. Duncanson in Montreal, 1863-1865," American Art Journal 17 (Autumn 1985), 29-50, discussed 35, 39, illus. (b-w) fig. 16.

Joseph D. Ketner, The Emergence of the African-American Artist: Robert S. Duncanson, 1821-1872 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1993), noted 141, illus. (as Canadian Landscape, b-w) fig. 84.

Exhibition HistoryRaleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "Recent Acquisitions," June 16-August 18, 1974, no. 3, illus. (b-w).

Charlotte, NC, Mint Museum of Art, "American Paintings from the Collection of the North Carolina Museum of Art," September 7-October 19, 1975, no. 12 (titled Montreal).

Durham, NC, North Carolina Central University, Museum of Art, "Duncanson: A British-American Connection," June 3-July 1, 1984, no. 1 (as Canadian Landscape), illus. (color).

Chapel Hill, NC, Ackland Art Museum, "At Work in the Wilderness," January 14-March 20, 2011.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," October 7, 2022–present. Object Rights Statement

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