painting
Artwork
Accession Number
983.771bDescription
A full portrait oil painting of a standing woman turned slightly to her left, her gold-coloured full-length dress with a chin-high collar of lace, the sleeves of lace and an overlay of ecru lace on the bodice and over the hips, her headgear a large black hat with black ostrich feather, her hair and eyes dark, her hand resting on the top of a pillar, the background a fenced garden with a high double-door gate to the right behind her, the floor of white and red marble tiles.Narrative
The subject of this portrait is 24 year-old May Raynsford (nee Tobin). Various family members also refer to her as Marie and Mary. The family Bible records her birth on July 1, 1884 in Wales, Ontario.Her parents, Moses Napoleon Tobin and Julia Byrne of Louisiana, moved to Quebec in the 19th Century. Moses worked there for his uncle and Godfather manufacturing matches and other products.
The couple next moved to Ontario where they started their family. After May's mother died, her father took the five daughters and two sons to homestead near Grandview, Manitoba. In adulthood, May returned to Quebec where she taught French.
She married Englishman Frank Joseph Raynsford at Grandview on April 28, 1904. He soon commissioned this painting, and shortly afterward, following a hunting accident, he died of pneumonia in Winnipeg on November 9, 1909. He was only 31.
May died of a heart attack 16 months later in California on March 11, 1911. She was just 26. Her family says she was specially remembered for her love for animals. Her brief marriage to Frank was a very happy one. The young couple had no children, and are buried together in St. John's Anglican Cemetery, Winnipeg.
Marie Raynsford's birthplace of Wales, Ontario is one of Ontario's so-called "Lost Villages". It was named for the Prince of Wales who visited the area in 1860. The town was just one of many settlements permanently flooded by the creation of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1958.
For information on the artist Victor Long, please click on the link at the bottom of the page.
