O-454

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painting (portrait)

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The Honourable Joseph Godéric Blanchet

Portrait of Speaker Joseph-Godéric Blanchet

Joseph-Godéric Blanchet was a doctor born in 1829. He was a militia commander along the St. Lawrence River during the Fenian raids. He supported Confederation and was a member of the Quebec assembly when he was elected MP to the new Canadian Parliament in 1867, a practice later prohibited. He was the only person to be Speaker in both the Commons and a provincial legislature. He died in 1890. His portrait was painted c. 1880 by John Colin Forbes, with bright light and warm background that perhaps alluded to Blanchet’s reputation for honesty and openness.

John Colin Forbes

The Forbes family arches over Canada’s early official portraiture like no other. Between John Colin Forbes and son Kenneth Forbes, they painted seven Prime Ministers and 25 speakers of the Senate or House of Commons. They also painted several British monarchs, most notably John Colin Forbes’s portraits of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, which were destroyed in the fire at Parliament in 1916. Forbes was born in Toronto in 1846, and studied in London and Paris. He was friends with Wilfrid Laurier and painted more than one portrait of the MP and Prime Minister, including one that Laurier donated to the nascent National Gallery of Canada.