Lot 41
Alexander, Sir James Edward (1803-1885)
Sketchbook of travels in Canada, including watercolours of Indigenous peoples
Auction: The Library of General Sir James Alexander | Wed 25 February from 10am | Lots 31 to 62
Description
Oblong 4to (14.8 x 20.8cm), roan-backed marbled boards, 56 ff., illustrated with one sketch to recto of each leaf (apart from two double-page panoramas), manuscript captions throughout, dated ownership inscription ‘Sir James Edwd Alexander, 14th, R.E.D., R. Eng[ineers] office, Montreal, 21st/12/45’ to initial blank, contents including: 4 watercolours of Indigenous North Americans, captioned ‘a surveyor’s Indian', ‘Squaw’, ‘Huron Hunter, had one of these as a henchman 1844’ (showing a man on snowshoes holding a rifle), and ‘Squaw & ‘squaller’’ (i.e. an Indigenous woman and her daughter), and one further watercolour (of a Canadian moose), the other sketches mostly in pen and ink with touches in pencil and occasional touches of grey wash (a few in pencil only), some 20 either non-specific or depicting scenes in Scotland, on the voyage out, or in the Alps, the remaining 35 or so relating to Canada, and including views (Lake Beaufort in Quebec, the St Lawrence River, a double-page panorama of Chester, Nova Scotia), a Quebec street scene, notable Quebec residences (chief engineer's residence, Holland House, ‘The Haunted House near Quebec)’, Halifax homesteads, events and social occasions (fancy-dress ball in Halifax, fire at St Louis Theatre, Quebec 'where 48 people perished, 1846', boat racing at Dartmouth near Halifax), portraits (‘Micmacs [Mi'kmaq] of N. Scotia’, the Earl of Elgin and Sir John Harvey at Government House, Halifax), modes of transport (including sleighs), proposed military uniform for Royal Canadian Voltigeurs, and similar
Provenance
THE LIBRARY OF GENERAL SIR JAMES EDWARD ALEXANDER (1803-1885)
Footnote
Alexander travelled to North America with the rank of captain in his new regiment the 14th foot in 1841. Between 1844 and 1845 he was detached to the Royal Engineers to help survey for a military road connecting Quebec and Halifax, recalling in a statement written decades later in support of his candidature for the Order of the Bath that ‘the work was very trying; and [I] got no promotion or reward for this beyond 10s. a day when in the bush, 7s. when working at plans and reports’. In 1847 he was appointed aide-de-camp to Sir Benjamin D'Urban, commander-in-chief, North America, whom he had previously served in the same capacity during the Cape Frontier War in South Africa in 1835, and continued as aide-de-camp to D'Urban's successor Sir William Rowan until 1855, when he proceeded with regiment to the Crimea. He wrote or edited several books about his experiences in Canada, including L'Acadie; or Seven Years' Explorations in British America (1849), Canada, As It Was, Is, and May Be (1851), and Salmon-Fishing in Canada (1860).