A special happy birthday to Sir William Buell Richards, born this day in 1815—the first individual to hold the title Chief Justice of Canada, and whose 1884 portrait hangs in the current Supreme Court of Canada building. His niece, Frances Richards (pictured), was the painter. A noted portraitist, she took high honors at Paris’ Académie Julian (exhibiting at the 1883 Paris Salon) and lived, for a time, in England where she befriended Oscar Wilde. Richards’ portrait of Wilde was reportedly the inspiration for his novel “The Portrait of Dorian Gray” and, as a kind gesture, the Irish bard wrote a letter of introduction for her to one of the most famous American landscape painters and portraitists of the time, James MacNeill Whistler, then practicing in London. “I want you to know, and to know is to delight in, Miss Richards, who is an artist, and a little oasis of culture in Canada,” said Wilde. “She does really good work.” That sure beats a LinkedIn endorsement any day. Photograph of Frances Rowley (née Richards) by Stanton & Vicars, Toronto, c. 1903, public domain.
NCPA
