Falls of Montmorency.

Title

Falls of Montmorency.

Description

View shows Montmorency Falls, a waterfall in the Canadian province of Quebec. The Montmorency River plunges 83 metres over a rock face into the Saint Lawrence River.

ca. 1880

Artist

Roberts (1796-1864)

David Roberts is one of the most important vedute painters of the 19th century. Thematically, his work can be partially assigned to orientalism. In 1832, on the advice of a friend, Roberts traveled to Spain, where he got to know almost all of the big cities and drew a large number of ruins and monuments. In 1837 a selection of these vedute appeared under the title Picturesque Sketches of Spain. This publication did not make him rich because his publisher had betrayed him, but it was the basis for his permanent international reputation and gave him the acquaintance of the talented Belgian engraver Louis Haghe. Robert's two-year stay in Spain, which had taken him to Tangier, evidently reinforced his latent interest in the Orient. In any case, after lengthy preparations, in August 1838 he set out on the trip to Egypt, which was to make him famous even after his death. For three months Roberts was on a rented ship on the Nile as far as Nubia and Abu Simbel and visited all important archaeological sites. He even managed to be the first European to step inside a mosque and draw. In the further course of his journey to Jerusalem, and from there to Lebanon, he suffered a persistent fever in Baalbek, which prevented him from continuing his journey. Finally, on May 13, 1839, Roberts started his journey home from Beirut. After Roberts had found the publisher Francis Graham Moon, all 247 lithographs of the journey to the Orient between 1842 and 1849 by the Belgian engraver Louis Haghe were published in six volumes in London. In 1841 Roberts became a full member of the Royal Academy and resumed his travel activities. David Roberts died in London on November 25, 1864 at the age of 68 and was buried in Norwood Cemetery.

Historical Description

Various indigenous peoples have inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years before European colonization. Beginning in the 16th century, British and French expeditions explored and later settled along the Atlantic coast. As a consequence of various armed conflicts, France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces. In 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, by the royal prerogative of Queen Elizabeth I, founded St. John's, Newfoundland, as the first North American English colony. French explorer Samuel de Champlain arrived in 1603 and established the first permanent European settlements at Port Royal (in 1605) and Quebec City (in 1608). Among the colonists of New France, Canadiensextensively settled the Saint Lawrence River valley and Acadians settled the present-day Maritimes, while fur traders and Catholic missionaries explored the Great Lakes, Hudson Bay, and the Mississippi watershed to Louisiana. The Beaver Wars broke out in the mid-17th century over control of the North American fur trade. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 established First Nation treaty rights, created the Province of Quebec out of New France, and annexed Cape Breton Island to Nova Scotia. After the successful American War of Independence, The 1783 Treaty of Paris recognized the independence of the newly formed United States and set the terms of peace, ceding British North American territories south of the Great Lakes to the new country. the Constitutional Act of 1791 divided the province of Canada into French-speaking Lower Canada (later Quebec) and English-speaking Upper Canada (later Ontario), granting each its own elected legislative assembly.