painting
Artwork
Accession Number
983.770bDescription
A framed painting of landscape with a body of water in the foreground with cows crossing it, the hills and mountains covered with low brush and bushes.Narrative
The scene depicted in this picture has not been identified. Its painter, Benjamin Williams Leader has been quoted as saying that his favourite location for inspiration was western England. The landscape portrayed here certainly resembles that of the Lake District in Western England, but also parts of Scotland. On the back of the canvas, the title "On the Banks of the Eye-bee-oh" is written, presumably by Leader himself.
History of Use
The painting was transferred, as a permanent loan, to The Castle Society in 1969 from the BC Provincial Library under the authority of Provincial Archivist Willard Ireland.1 The painting was bequeathed to the BC Provincial Library in 1969 by Ernest William Albert Crocker of Victoria, who claimed that the picture had hung in Craigdarroch's dining room before he purchased it from Joseph Sommer, a Victoria picture-framer and art dealer, who, in 1890, operated from his store at 48 Government Street.21. The annual general meeting of The Castle Society was held November 29, 1969. The minutes of that meeting record: "Mr. Ireland, chief archivist, had given, on loan, a very fine painting".
2. Letter from W.E. Ireland, BC Provincial Librarian and Archivist to Castle Society President James K. Nesbitt, dated August 15, 1969.
