O-451

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painting (portrait)

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The Honourable Louis-Victor Sicotte

Portrait of Speaker Louis-Victor Sicotte

Louis-Victor Sicotte was born in Boucherville, Quebec, in 1812. He became a lawyer, and was co-founder of the organization that introduced St-Jean-Baptiste Day as a national day for French Canada. He feared, correctly, that rebellion would bring union with Upper Canada. In 1851 he was elected to the Assembly of the Province of Canada. He became Speaker after he led a successful non-confidence vote in 1854. In 1863 he led another non-confidence vote but the government survived. Sicotte left politics to become a judge in Saint-Hyancinthe. His portrait was painted by Théophile Hamel in 1855, and he died in 1889.

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.