The Most Reverend Alexander Macdonell, ca. 1823-1824

Artist: Shee, Martin Archer (1769-1850)

Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 91.3 x 72 cm (stretcher)

Alexander Macdonell (1762-1840) came to Canada in 1804 from Scotland with the purpose of bringing immigrants to Glengarry County, Upper Canada (Ontario). He was a man of great size and great political astuteness, and in 1826 was made the first Roman Catholic bishop of Upper Canada. During a visit to England in 1823, Macdonell sat to Martin Archer Shee, an Irish-born society portraitist and fellow Catholic. The portrait shows Bishop Macdonell in a very sympathetic manner, his brawniness revealed only in his large hands. Behing himis a drawing of a church, a reference to his ambitious church building projects. The portrait was a bequest to the NA from Bishop Macdonell's great-grandniece in 1945.

National Archives of Canada, negative no. C-011059