O-695

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painting (portrait)

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The Honourable Michel Chartier de Lotbinière

Portrait of Speaker Michel Chartier de Lotbinière

Michel Chartier de Lotbinière was born in Quebec City in 1748, the son of the Marquis de Lotbinière, the only Canadian made a marquis by French King Louis XVI. The son inherited but didn’t use the title, probably to not rile British authorities who by then ruled Canada. “I am destined to live with the English,” he wrote to his father. In 1793 Lotbinière successfully argued that French be recognized as equal to English in the House of Assembly, and to this day a painting of the moment hangs in the National Assembly in Quebec.

Théophile Hamel worked from earlier portraits to create this portrait in 1854.

Théophile Hamel

Théophile Hamel was born in 1817 in Sainte-Foy, Quebec, and studied art in Quebec and in many of the great cultural centres of Europe. He was an astute business man and a tremendously successful artist, and the National Gallery of Canada calls him “one of early Canada’s greatest portrait painters.” In 1853 the government of the United Canadas appointed him official portrait painter, and tasked him with creating portraits of all Speakers since 1791, many of which were copied from portraits held by families or elsewhere. His subjects also included the generals Montcalm and Wolfe, and many other eminent figures of early Canada.