Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1791 - [after 1854?] (Creation)
Level of description
Extent and medium
274 sheets of watercolour, pencil or ink sketches
1 sketchbook
2 folders of sketch fragments (1.5 cm)
2 folders of textual material (0.5 cm)
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Elizabeth Posthuma Simcoe was born in 1762, the daughter of Thomas Gwillim and Elizabeth Spinkes. Her father died seven months prior to her birth, and her mother died in childbirth. She was in the care of her mother’s sister, Margaret, who was married to Admiral Samuel Graves. Through this connection, she met John Graves Simcoe. Through a sizeable inheritance from her mother and father, she was able to purchase and restore Wolford Lodge, which would serve as the Simcoe family estate. She accompanied her husband to Upper Canada in 1791, alongside her two youngest children, Sophia, aged 2, and Francis, aged 3 months.
Throughout her five years in Upper Canada, Elizabeth Simcoe maintained an active social and artistic life. She was a leader in the social life of the province and served as an unofficial secretary and cartographer for her husband. She was an accomplished artist, and the time spent in Upper and Lower Canada was well-documented through her sketches and water colours. She was also an avid diarist, recording many of her experiences in the province.
In 1796, she returned to Wolford Lodge, where she would live for the remainder of her life. She remained active as an artist, and although she maintained active correspondence with friends in Upper Canada, she never returned. She died in 1850 at the age on 87.
Archival history
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
This series consists of sketches and watercolour paintings, most of which were drawn/painted by Elizabeth Posthuma Simcoe. The Sketches consist primarily of landscapes, the majority of which are view of Upper and Lower Canada. Simcoe’s primary purpose was to document the landscape as it appeared at the time. The sketches provide a visual compliment to her diaries (Series 8), which contain documentation regarding when the scenes were sketched. In cases where a date or descriptive caption have not been provided, the diaries have been used to supply this information. Additional sketches are with the diaries in Series 8.
The majority are pencil sketches coloured with watercolour wash. The use of grey, blue, and green is predominant throughout all the sketches, and the differences between water, sky, and trees are subtle. As a result, the sketches have little focus on detail, instead emphasizing documentation of the overall landscape.
This series consists of 4 sub-series. These are “Loose sketches,” “Sketchbook,” “Miscellaneous sketches and fragments,” and “Miscellaneous notes.”
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
Accruals
System of arrangement
The entirety of the material in Series 19 and 20 (“Oversized Sketches” and “Mounted Sketches,” respectively) was originally included in this series upon transfer from the AO. Due to their physical characteristics—with sketches in Series 19 being too large to fit in boxes with the majority here, and the sketches in Series 20 being mounted onto hard particle board—the material in these series was physically separate from the rest of the sketches. Series 19 and 20 have been created to allow for their intellectual arrangement to correspond with their physical arrangement.