- Country:Canada
- Collection:Silver Commemorative $5
- Metal:Silver
- Year:2015
- Denomination:$5
- Finish:Complete
- Weight (oz):1.0
- Purity:0.9999
- Mintage:7000
- Product type:Coin
Cornelius Krieghoff is one of Canada's most well-known and celebrated artists of the nineteenth century. His iconic images of life among the French-Canadian habitants and First Nations peoples of Quebec helped to shape Canada's early visual identity and captured an important moment in the history of the nation.
A beautiful 3-coin subscription, an ideal gift for someone whoenjoys iconic Canadian art. Order your subscriptiontoday!
Special features:
¥ You also receive a beautiful red wooden box with your first coin: Moccasin Seller Crossing the St. Lawrence at Quebec City, c. 1853-1863. Other coins that ship one per month in your subscription include:
¥ Hunter in Winter, c. 1855-1865
¥ Indian Wigwam in Lower Canada, 1848
¥ INCLUDES KRIEGHOFF'S SIGNATURE: An artist's signature is a testament to the authorship of an artwork. For each of these three coins, our engravers carefully reproduced Krieghoff's signature and placed it in a prominent position on the coin's reverse.
¥ Each coin in your subscription is engraved to exacting standards to faithfully reproduce details from three of Krieghoff's portraits of First Nations peoples.
¥ This three 99.99% pure silver coins celebrates the work of iconic nineteenth-century Canadian artist Cornelius Krieghoff.
¥ Celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of one of Canada's most beloved artists.
¥ A limited mintage of only 7,000 sets and highly attractive subject matter means that this set issure to be sought after by collectors.
¥ GST/HST exempt.
Coin design:
Considered by many art historians to be Canada's most interesting visual chronicler of the ways oflife of First Nations groups and settlers in early British North America, Cornelius Krieghoff's iconic images of the everyday life of French-Canadian habitants and First Nations peoples of Quebec helped to shape Canada's early visual identity and captured an important moment in the history of the nation. This unique coin set by the Royal Canadian Mint presents engraved details from three of his famous First Nations portraits in 99.99% pure silver.
Born in Amsterdam in 1815, Krieghoff emigrated to New York City in 1837, where he joined the United States Army.While in the United States, he met and married Qu becoise Emilie Gauthier and first came to Quebec in 1840. In 1844, he returned briefly to Europe to work and study as a copyist at the Louvre in Paris. He and Emilie settled in Montreal in 1846, where they would stay until 1853. In Montreal, Krieghoff lived among his wife's community and became fascinated with local First Nations peoples. Along with the landscape itself, these two groups became the major subjects of his life work. Exhibiting as a member of the Montr al Society of Artists introduced Krieghoff to Quebec's Anglophone society. His work became popular in his own lifetime.
Krieghoff and his family moved to Quebec City in 1854 and retired to Chicago in 1868, where he died in 1872 at the age of 56. He produced more than 1,500 works in his lifetime.
This coin set includes three 99.99% pure silver coins, with a diameter of 36.07 millimetres and a metal weight of 23.17grams. The reverse of each coin features an engraved detail from one of three famous works by nineteenth-century artist Cornelius Krieghoff, including Hunter in Winter, c. 1855-1865; Moccasin Seller Crossing the St. Lawrence at Quebec City, c. 1853-1863; and Indian Wigwam in Lower Canada, 1848.
Moccasin Seller Crossing the St. Lawrence at Quebec City, c. 1853-1863, oil on canvas
¥ In Krieghoff's works, First Nations women are often depicted as vendors of handicrafts. This painting from Krieghoff's time in Quebec City after 1853 features a First Nations woman wrapped in a Hudson's Bay Company blanket crossing the frozen St. Lawrence on snowshoes. She uses ahead strap to carry a large basket on her back. Thegoods she sells-a clutch of moccasins-hang from a rope around her waist. Vastoutcroppings of thick, broken ice dominate the landscape and the Quebec citadel is visible high atop a cliff in the distant background, common elements of Krieghoff's winter scenes from this period.
Hunter in Winter, c. 1855-1865, oil on canvas
¥ Krieghoff's male aboriginal figures areoften depicted in the act of hunting. In thisimage, a First Nations man wearing a knit cap, moccasins and a long coat treks through the snow on snowshoes, carrying a rifle. A rolling highland rises in the distant background. Krieghoff's observations were gathered on hunting expeditions with First Nations guides, studyingand travelling with Caughnawaga Iroquois and Kahnawake Mohawk people near Montr al in the mid-1840s and the Huron (Wendat), Mi'kmaq, and Montagnais (Innu) peoples near QuebecCity after 1853.
Indian Wigwam in Lower Canada, 1848,lithograph with watercolour on paper
¥ In Krieghoff's time, it was not uncommon for artists to make an income from professional lithographs of their more popular works. Lithographs required exceptional skill and artistry to produce, and were nearly as valued as the original artworks from whichthey were drawn. As early as 1848, Krieghoff initiated the production of lithographs, issued under the patronage of British North American Governor General, the Earl of Elgin. Indian Wigwam in Lower Canada was one of four prints from a portfolio titled "Scenes in Canada" depicting the peoples and landscapes of the region around Montr al. The lithographs themselves were printed in Germany by celebrated lithographer Andreas Borum. They were sold in both monochrome and hand-coloured versions.
