Cornelius David Krieghoff 1815 - 1872

Private Collection, Ontario

Sometimes miracles occur when objects believed to have perished forever suddenly come to light many, many years later. Such is the remarkable appearance of A Private Conversation, a painting that has never been recorded. The miracle is doubled in a way by the fact that this painting is in exceptionally fine condition.

What is charming about the painting is the delightful story it tells. A young man has stopped by a rural cabin to talk with, and obviously to woo, a young woman. As they chat, the chaperone looks anxiously, perhaps severely, down from above, unnoticed by the couple who are rapt in each others' company.

What is astounding about the painting, apart from the clever but natural arrangement of the focus on the principals, is the ease and care taken in the rest of the painting – every square inch is meticulously thought out and perfectly painted. The tree arching over the whole scene, the dog, the distant spire of a church, the light and shadow of the sun shining through the tree onto the house, and the casually graduated light on the ground in the foreground. Taken altogether this is a tour de force at a level that Krieghoff did not always achieve, except in those larger and more complex canvases of merry-making at a village inn, the boat races across the icy St. Lawrence in winter, or the spectacularly well-peopled panoramas of the ice cone at Montmorency Falls. This canvas is in that company of masterworks.