Provenance:

Private Collection, Vancouver
Kaspar Gallery, Toronto
Private Collection, Toronto
By descent to the present Private Collection, Toronto

Literature:

Ramsay Cook, ‘The Outsider as Insider: Cornelius Krieghoff’s Art of Describing’ in Dennis Reid, “Krieghoff Images of Canada”, Toronto, 1999, pages 155-156, 163. Cornelius Krieghoff specialized in genre paintings depicting the lives of the people of Quebec in the nineteenth century. “Returning from the Hunt” of 1859 is a remarkable anecdotal image of a settlement in the depths of winter in the Quebec region, filled with fantastic and wry details. While pioneer life was rugged and precarious, it was also a productive and fruitful time for the artist as he recorded the industry and ingenuity of the people.

According to Dennis Reid, Krieghoff did not just depict rural families as groups of people, but as if they were a cohesive and coordinated unit. In “Returning from the Hunt”, Krieghoff tells several stories: a hunter confidently stands in the foreground, gun in hand and a hare slung over his shoulder, accompanied by his loyal dog. Nearby, a family struggles to move a sleigh filled with logs across the ice. A man wearing a “ceinture fléchée” pushes the heavy load, assisted by a dog pulling the sleigh. Another man greets the hunter, or perhaps is giving him directions to the nearest town. In the background a plume of smoke rises from a well-built log house. A couple tends to their chores—one man gathers logs while a woman stands in the doorway. This is an industrious, everyday scene of life in winter, recorded as taking place near Saint-Césaire and Chambly.