Accession Number

998.013b

Description

A watercolor and gouache painting of the head and shoulders of a child (Joan Olive Bryden), about age 8, wearing a green striped dress with large frilled collar, her reddish-brown hair in ringlets and parted on the right side, her head slightly turned to her left, the watercolour in an oval mat.

Narrative

Joan Olive Bryden (1887-1959) was a granddaughter of Robert and Joan Dunsmuir and daughter of Elizabeth Hamilton Dunsmuir (Mrs. John Bryden) and John Cowper Bryden. She was born in Wellington, B.C. and died in Victoria. She and her husband Major Alastair Macdonald had three daughters and lived at their North Saanich farm named Duntulm. To her friends and family, she was known as "Olive". 

History of Use

The original owners of this painting were Elizabeth Hamilton Dunsmuir (Mrs. John Bryden), daughter of Robert and Joan Dunsmuir, and her husband John Cowper Bryden. It was used in the Bryden's Esquimalt house named Dalzellowlie. It was next inherited by their daughter Joan Olive Bryden and taken to Duntulm, the North Saanich, B.C. farm she shared with her husband, Alastair Douglas Macdonald and their three daughters. The painting was then inherited by their daughter Jean Lilias Patricia Macdonald  who displayed the painting in her Oak Bay, B.C. residence until 1983 when she donated it to The Castle Society. 

Date

circa 1895

Dimensions

41 x 33.7 cm

Subject/Image

Joan Olive Bryden

Medium

Watercolour; Gouache

Support

Paper

Technique

Painted

Country of Origin

Canada