History, Art and Architecture Collection
O-4139
print
Fathers of Confederation

O-4139
print
Fathers of Confederation

Search the collection
print Photo gallery for Fathers of Confederation photo 1

Specifications

Artists Robert Harris (original artist)
Date 1917
Inscriptions
This is the original preparatory drawing made by me before beginning and which I used in, the execution of my painting "The Fathers of Confederation" which was burnt in the great fire of Parliament Building in Ottawa 1916. In a very few points only did I depart from this composition drawing the painting in the finished picture, windows background
of … added. This cartoon was rolled up on the completion of the painting. It remained so until the painting was burnt; when it was unrolled and in its original state mounted for preservation. Dec. 1916 Robert Harris
Materials ink
Support paper, unidentified
Personal Names Adams George Archibald Hewitt Bernard George Brown Alexander Campbell Frederick Bowker Terrington Carter George-Étienne Cartier Edward Barron Chandler Jean-Charles Chapais James W. Cockburn (House of Commons) George Coles Robert Barry Dickey Charles Fisher Alexander Tilloch Galt John Hamilton Gray John Hamilton Gray Thomas Heath Haviland William Alexander Henry William Pearce Howland John Mercer Johnson Hector-Louis Langevin John Alexander Macdonald (House of Commons) Andrew Archibald Macdonald Jonathan McCully William McDougall Thomas D'Arcy McGee Peter Mitchell Oliver Mowat Edward Palmer William Henry Pope John William Ritchie Ambrose Shea William Henry Steeves Étienne Pascal Taché Samuel Leonard Tilley Charles Tupper (House of Commons) Edward Whelan Robert Duncan Wilmot
Dimensions (cm) 110.0 (Width)54.0 (Height)
Functions Art
Barcode 601852
Photo gallery for Fathers of Confederation photo 2 Photo gallery for Fathers of Confederation photo 3 Photo gallery for Fathers of Confederation photo 4 Photo gallery for Fathers of Confederation photo 5 Photo gallery for Fathers of Confederation photo 6

Robert Harris

More than a century after his death in 1919, Robert Harris remains the most famous portrait painter in Canada. Born in Wales in 1849, his family moved to Prince Edward Island in 1856. His best-known work, the painting of the Fathers of Confederation formally titled “Meeting of the Delegates of British North America to Settle the Terms of Confederation, Quebec, October 1864,” was destroyed in the fire at Parliament in 1916. His 1885 masterpiece “A Meeting of the School Trustees,” set in rural P.E.I., and many other of his works hang at the National Gallery of Canada.
Related objects from the collection