Marc Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Côté 1869 - 1937

These two classic figures are among Suzor-Côté's icons: The Old Canadian Pioneer and his Companion, created exactly one hundred years ago. He sits, legs crossed, in his rocking chair smoking his pipe, while she knits, the ball of wool in her lap. The figures are each on a base, a section of pine wood floor, which Suzor-Côté has sculpted in as much detail as he has the husband and wife. Indeed, the careful and sharp detail in every aspect of this couple's portraits is what makes these works so durable and endearing.

The provenance of this particular pair is what separates them from many of the casts that have been made in a century. Casts, unregistered and undocumented, that were made from other bronzes rather than the original plasters, have lost much or most of the subtleness that makes a difference to one's appreciation of them: rounded, smoothed-out clothing, a flat floor, no knitting needles, no facial expression, and so on.

This pair, however, was acquired by Harold Fortington, a British financier who did business in Quebec and New York in the 1920s. He brought them to his home in By Huntley, Aberdeenshire, when he returned to the United Kingdom in the early 1930s. They then descended in the family and are from the estate of Mrs. N.A.J. Moulton-Barrett, his daughter, who died in 2011. These works were cast, as Suzor-Côté's bronzes mostly were, by Roman Bronze Works in New York. Whether the artist approved this casting or whether Fortington acquired the works directly from Roman Bronze without the artist's knowledge, is not known, but possible.