I had assumed a museum full of French art, bought from the profits from selling Remington shavers. But at the museum we were told we had the wrong Remington, with this Remington being into guns. And anyway, this Remington was just the artist nephew of the gun-toting one, but well enough off to live in style as an artist. Famous now both for paintings of the west which was vanishing during his active life, say the second half of the nineteenth century, and for small bronzes, a lot of which were actively equestrian and which are now eminently collectible. Famous in life for the large number of illustrations which he supplied magazines with.
The heart of the collection is housed in a handsome new gallery at the back of a grand house from the same time as the artist himself, and consists of paintings of the west around the outside and bronzes of the west in the middle. Various supporting material, including an interesting exhibit showing something of the process by which the bronzes were made, one result of which was that the 50 (say) bronzes cast from the one clay original were all slightly different. The discerning collector might be fussy about which one he had. We also had the first page of the letter in which the artist asked the father for the hand of his daughter; very old-fashioned and respectful.
The grand house, with lots of highly polished brown wood, some on the ceilings, was presented very much in the way of one of our own stately homes. And it turned out the senior duty trustee came from the Red Deer River area of the dinosaurs noticed on 14th October (http://www.psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/two-chance-encounters.html) and had done time at Calgary, where my mother was born. Of originally Aberdeenish stock.
The second museum was the Bytown Museum at the Rideau Locks, largely a celebration of the Lower Town area of Ottawa where we are staying, but also a memorial to the British Army's role in the founding of Ottawa and the Canadian participation in both world wars. An engaging museum with a nicely displayed & eclectic collection. I was interested to come across the cutlass illustrated, once belonging to a Shiner, with the Shiners being tough Irish gangs who made it their business to fight the French, whom they thought were hogging all the jobs in the lumber trade, then the mainstay, not to say the staff, of life in Ottawa. There were also Fenian angles. I was interested to see that this cutlass was a far superior cutlass to those used by sailors in Nelson's day, which we had come across at Greenwich - but failed to notice at http://psmv2.blogspot.ca/2013/11/turner.html - about a year ago. They looked very cheap and cheerful compared with this one. The ticket also explained that a cutlass was a lot easier to use than a proper sword, the sort of thing that a proper gent. might use. The machete of its day.
Outside to find a replica brigantine in the lock. Also a young lady jogger with an umbrella deployed against the light rain, otherwise properly lycra'd up. The first time that I have seen such a thing.
PS: from the Remington bronzes, I associated to the Belgian bronzes of the Poirot story called 'The Underdog'. Perhaps because we have finally tracked down some Poirot in the Canadian television timetable. But they don't seem to do Lewis, Morse or Midsomer Murders.
References 1 & 2: the wrong Remington is at http://www.remingtonproducts.com/ while the right one is at http://www.remington.com/. With a huge choice at the latter, everything the discerning hunter could possibly want. A web site which reflects the strength of the industry.
Reference 3: the first museum is at http://www.fredericremington.org/.
Reference 4: the second museum is at http://www.bytownmuseum.com/.
Reference 5: the brigantine is at http://www.tallshipsadventure.org/.
No comments:
Post a Comment