Lot 30: CORNELIUS KRIEGHOFF, A VISIT TO THE DENTIST, oil on canvas, 13.5 ins x 10 ins; 34.3 cms x 25.4 cms

CORNELIUS KRIEGHOFFA VISIT TO THE DENTISToil on canvassigned 13.5 ins x 10 ins; 34.3 cms x 25.4 cms Provenance:Private Collection, MontrealLiterature:Dennis Reid, Krieghoff: Images of Canada, Douglas & McIntyre, Toronto, 1999, page 53.When Cornelius Krieghoff (1815-1872) arrived in Canada in 1840, he had little significant formal training and yet his work attracted enough commercial interest that friends recommended he consider enhancing his skills by spending time visiting the great galleries of Europe where he might set himself the task of copying masterworks. This was a traditional step in an artist's training that was popular then and is still done today. As a result of the trip he made to Europe around 1845, we have a small number of works that survive. This work, A Visit to the Dentist, likely stems from that early period of artistic development.We know something of the artist's movements while overseas. He visited London to meet with his publishers, and carried on to Paris, were he copied works both in the Louvre and the Luxembourg. Yet, the precise source inspiration of this picture remains unknown. Perhaps it was not one single picture that he copied (as is the case for other early works that have surfaced) but a pastiche of inspirations, interpreted in an entirely novel way. Marius Barbeau, Russell Harper and Dennis Reid have each devoted space in their histories of the artist to this period in his production and the works that resulted. If we place A Visit to the Dentist in that early period of Kreighoff's art making, we may view it as a prototype for what would follow. Returning to Canada with sharpened skills, Krieghoff went on to paint the Canadianized versions of the genre scenes he saw in the European galleries. Typically, figures - or more accurately, characters - are set within or upon a kind of stage that clearly indicates mood and setting, as this lot does. One thinks of the Officers Trophy Room (Royal Ontario Museum) and The Artist's Studio (National Gallery of Canada). The lessons of Europe are also evident here particularly in the way Kreighoff has understood and interpreted light, reflecting, as it were, the methods of the the great Dutch Masters to which he would have been exposed.Estimate: $10,000–15,000