Accession Number

2017.012.001

Alternate Name

picture

Description

One hand-tinted print of a woman standing against a wall at the base of a stone staircase. The woman is turned away from the viewer. She wears a yellow bodice and blue skirt tucked up to expose her underskirt and calves.

Narrative

This attractive hand-tinted print in a gilt frame, when new, would have been appealing to a home-owner wishing to hang aesthetically pleasing artwork while spending little money. It was acquired for display in one of Craigdarroch’s servants' rooms.

In an opulent gilded-age house like Craigdarroch, inexpensive artwork like this would have helped to make a servant’s room very comfortable at a time when domestic help was becoming increasingly difficult to find and retain. Joan Dunsmuir seems to have rewarded loyal servants. The first people mentioned in her last will and testament were servants Ellen and Annie Ruth. Each of them was to receive $500 if they were still in her employ when Joan died.  

History of Use

These pictures were purchased from a Victoria collector in 2017. In 1997, the vendor acquired them from the Estate of the late Carl Rudolf of Victoria. Mr. Rudolph had been displaying them in his private historic house museum called Regents Park House at 1501 Fort Street. In the early 2000's the house was known as the Amethyst Inn bed & breakfast establishment.

The large wooden house was purchased by Mr. Rudolph in the 1950's. He was a professional shipwright who spent his off-time attending auctions, Estate and demolition sales across greater Victoria. He was a long-term member of The Castle Society and some of the Society’s earliest social functions occurred at his house.

Mr. Rudolph told Craigdarroch’s curator that he acquired furnishings and building components from various old local houses, including the Dunsmuir houses Mt. Adelaide and Ashnola. It is not known whether these pictures came from a Dunsmuir house. Stamped on the backing paper of each piece is the name of Joseph Sommer, picture framer, of Victoria’s Government Street. Victoria directories indicate that Sommer operated on Government Street from at least as early as 1890.   

Date

circa 1900

Medium

Ink

Support

Paper

Technique

Lithograph