The original artist is C.G. Crehen, a lithographer who was born in Paris circa 1829, and who immigrated to the US in 1850. He is known for his portraits and as a skilled artist. He traveled around the US and worked for printing companies in many of the larger cities.

SPROULE, ROBERT AUCHMUTY, (1799-1845) water-colourist, miniaturist, and drawing-master; b. in Athlone (Republic of Ireland), second son of Thomas Sproule and Marianne Ardesoif; m. 8 Oct. 1831 Jane Hopper in Montreal, and they had two sons and four daughters; d. 1845 in March Township, Upper Canada.

Robert Auchmuty Sproule came to Lower Canada in 1826 and settled in Montreal. On 30 September he put an advertisement in the Montreal Herald, announcing himself as a miniaturist who had studied with “the best Masters in London and Dublin.” In November 1829 he gave notice of his intention to bring out six views of Montreal, which did in fact appear the following year. Published by Adolphus Bourne, they had been engraved on copperplate by William Satchwell Leney from Sproule’s water-colours. The series marked the beginning of a fruitful collaboration between Bourne and Sproule that lasted until 1834 and led to the introduction of lithography into the colony. Bourne went to London lithographer Charles Joseph Hullmandel in 1832 for the printing of a group of works by Sproule, including four views of Quebec and a portrait of Louis-Joseph Papineau. He returned to Montreal with a lithographic press and subsequently used it for Sproule’s drawings. The results included the frontispiece for the Montreal Museum or Journal of Literature and Arts in December 1832, a portrait of Archbishop Bernard-Claude Panet, one of St Francis Xavier, and a view of the steamer Great Britain, all three published in 1833, and a view of the church of Notre-Dame in Montreal printed in 1834. As well, Sproule transferred illustrations by Alexander Jamieson Russel and several others to stone for lithographing; they were printed by Bourne for Hawkins’s picture of Quebec; with historical recollections, a work by Alfred Hawkins that came out at Quebec in 1834.

In Montreal Sproule also taught drawing, a common practice among miniaturists of the period. His frequent moves with his family after 1834, however, suggest that it was not possible for him to make a living there. He can be followed through his children’s births, rather than through his artistic activities, to Cornwall in Upper Canada around 1836, Williamstown around 1838, and finally the Bytown (Ottawa) region. In 1839 he was residing in Huntley, where his wife’s family had lived since 1836; his father had also been living near by at Richmond since 1820. In 1840 Sproule and his wife received two acres of land in March Township from her brother, Albert Hopper. Sproule apparently kept a store at March Corners for a while, and later another one at Stittsville. In June 1844 he again advertised himself as a miniaturist and drawing-master, but this time in Bytown. When he died in November or December of the following year, he was reported to have been living in March Township.

Robert Auchmuty Sproule’s name has lived on through his prints. The views of Montreal (copies of each edition and five of the original water-colours are held at the McCord Museum there) are said to make up the most handsome series published in Canada and to demonstrate the maturity achieved in pictorial printmaking during the first half of the 19th century. The other prints done by Sproule and Bourne were not always of the same quality as the Montreal and Quebec series, a quality attained partly through the collaboration of Leney, who was an excellent engraver, and Hullmandel. Except for one portrait of himself and another of his wife, Sproule’s work as a miniaturist remains little known.

BOURNE, ADOLPHUS, engraver, lithographer, publisher of Canadian views, and merchant; b. April 1795 in Staffordshire, England; married and had ten children; d. 14 July 1886 in Montreal, Que.

Adolphus Bourne was born into a family which had connections with the pottery trade. Trained in England as an engraver, he first appears in Montreal directories in 1820, the year in which he started business modestly by engraving the lettering for the title-page of a book of verse. Three years later he engraved a map of the city but little else is known of his work during the 1820s. In 1830 Bourne printed and published six Montreal scenes, engraved by William Satchwell Leney after water-colours by Robert Auchmuty Sproule, which comprised the first set of single-sheet engravings of a Canadian city to be printed in Canada. He travelled to London, England, two years later to have four views of Quebec City and portraits of Denis-Benjamin Viger and Louis-Joseph Papineau lithographed by the famous firm of Charles Joseph Hullmandel. Returning a few months later with a lithographic press, Bourne advertised as “A. Bourne’s London Branch Lithographic Establishment,” at the same time noting that he would also continue with copperplate engraving and printing. Over the next 18 years he printed more than 20 Canadian views, a significant proportion of the pictorial material printed in Canada before 1850. From about 1845 to 1865 Bourne also carried on a modest china, glass, and earthenware importing business, wholesale and retail, until it was declared insolvent in 1865; a fire on his property was one of the causes of his losses. Credit reports of this business describe him as of good character, but “rather crotchety in bus[iness] Matters,” his wife being the better business “man” of the two. Although no longer listing himself as a printer in his later years, he reissued the early Montreal and Quebec sets of views as chromolithographs in 1871 and 1874, and in 1878 published a view of Montreal by James D. Duncan.

The quality of Bourne’s prints varies, from accomplished professional works to expressive but naïve productions, corresponding to the ability of the artists, engravers, and lithographers with whom he collaborated. His own work, especially as a lithographer, does not achieve the highest standard within the whole range of his publications, but he is important for his effort to establish a pictorial printing trade in Montreal.

Reference:

Toronto Public Librairy

View of the Esplanade and Fortifications of Quebec – 1832

Crehen, Charles G., American, fl. 1841-1891, after

Picture, 1874, English

Notes

Acc. D 5-13b is a photograph, c.1910? of a variant impression "SUPPLEMENT TO THE STANDARD NEWSPAPER, MONTREAL".

Acc. JRR 2005 is an impression of the Walton print after Sproule, 1832.

Inscribed in pen and greyish red ink, mount l.l.: 57

Letterpress, mount l.l.: R.A. SPROULE, DEL.; mount l.r.: C.G. CREHEN, CHROMO.; mount b.: View of the Esplanade and Fortifications of Quebec―1832. / PUBLISHED BY ADOLPHUS BOURNE, MONTREAL, CANADA, 1874.

Nov 9 1988

One of a set of five Quebec prints published by Bourne in 1874 (Accs. JRR 2837, 2842-3, 2849-50).

Spendlove p. 64; Jefferys 231; Reps 3825

Publisher

Bourne, Adolphus, 1795-1886

Rights and Licenses

Public Domain

Medium

Colour lithograph on wove paper mounted on card mount

Extent

Sheet (trimmed within comp.) 266 x 381; mount 354 x 469 mm

Provenance

Gift of J. Ross Robertson

Contributor

Sproule, Robert Auchmuty, Canadian, 1799-1845

Branch

Toronto Reference Library

Location

Baldwin Collection

Call Number / Accession Number

JRR 2842 Cab IV (Sproule)