James Wolfe may have been the dauntless hero who, in 1759, planted firm Britannia’s flag on Canada’s fair domain. But in the years before his death at 32 on the Plains of Abraham, the battlefield general and central figure in Canadian history had not had much luck with love.
Nevertheless, next month Bonhams auction house in London is selling a memento of sorts that reveals a little about the romantic aspect of the historic general’s life: an oval-shaped oil painting by the great portraitist Thomas Gainsborough of a uniformed military man “traditionally identified” as Wolfe. Lore has it that the canvas, 77 by 63 centimetres, was commissioned by Katherine Lowther, daughter of a wealthy landowner to whom Wolfe became engaged shortly before his fateful departure to Quebec. Theirs was a brief courtship, apparently, lasting mere months. Unfortunately, since none of their correspondence appears to have survived, details of the relationship are a mystery.
Wolfe’s first known romantic entanglement occurred 11 years earlier, in late 1747, while the 20-year-old soldier was in Flanders recovering from a wound suffered during the War of the Austrian Succession. There, his attention was captured by Elizabeth Lawson, niece of his brigade commander. However, his parents, Edward and Henrietta, disapproved and when Wolfe was transferred to duties in Scotland in 1748, the relationship withered and died. An irked Wolfe then severed all dealings with his parents and embarked for a time on a life of what he described as “idleness, dissolution, abandon” and “imprudent action.” In 1752, travelling to the Dublin home of his uncle Major Walter Wolfe, he met and bedded the unnamed widow of a military officer, later celebrated as the “Irish Venus” in a George Townshend illustration titled The Irish Venus Mourning General Wolfe (1760), now at Montreal’s McCord Museum.
The Gainsborough has had many owners since Katherine Lowther, the most recent being the late German architect and ship designer Caesar Pinnau and his wife, Ruth. Bonhams’ sale, on Dec. 3, marks at least the fourth time the oil has been at auction. It has a pre-sale estimate of $212,000 to $320,000.
James Wolfe may have been the dauntless hero who, in 1759, planted firm Britannia’s flag on Canada’s fair domain. But in the years before his death at 32 on the Plains of Abraham, the battlefield general and central figure in Canadian history had not had much luck with love.
Nevertheless, next month Bonhams auction house in London is selling a memento of sorts that reveals a little about the romantic aspect of the historic general’s life: an oval-shaped oil painting by the great portraitist Thomas Gainsborough of a uniformed military man “traditionally identified” as Wolfe. Lore has it that the canvas, 77 by 63 centimetres, was commissioned by Katherine Lowther, daughter of a wealthy landowner to whom Wolfe became engaged shortly before his fateful departure to Quebec. Theirs was a brief courtship, apparently, lasting mere months. Unfortunately, since none of their correspondence appears to have survived, details of the relationship are a mystery.
Wolfe’s first known romantic entanglement occurred 11 years earlier, in late 1747, while the 20-year-old soldier was in Flanders recovering from a wound suffered during the War of the Austrian Succession. There, his attention was captured by Elizabeth Lawson, niece of his brigade commander. However, his parents, Edward and Henrietta, disapproved and when Wolfe was transferred to duties in Scotland in 1748, the relationship withered and died. An irked Wolfe then severed all dealings with his parents and embarked for a time on a life of what he described as “idleness, dissolution, abandon” and “imprudent action.” In 1752, travelling to the Dublin home of his uncle Major Walter Wolfe, he met and bedded the unnamed widow of a military officer, later celebrated as the “Irish Venus” in a George Townshend illustration titled The Irish Venus Mourning General Wolfe (1760), now at Montreal’s McCord Museum.
The Gainsborough has had many owners since Katherine Lowther, the most recent being the late German architect and ship designer Caesar Pinnau and his wife, Ruth. Bonhams’ sale, on Dec. 3, marks at least the fourth time the oil has been at auction. It has a pre-sale estimate of $212,000 to $320,000.