Pauline (Archer) Vanier personifying Joan of Arc, ca. 1920, by Sidney Carter

In her personification of Joan of Arc, Pauline Archer portrayed spiritual nobility and self-sacrifice. As the wife of a future governor general, Georges-Philéas Vanier, and supporter of her humanitarian son, Jean Vanier, she lived these qualities fully.

Costume portraits were popular from Victorian times onwards. Carter’s portrait of Pauline Archer convincingly projects this well-to-do young woman as a noble Joan of Arc, a heroine who had just been raised to the status of Roman Catholic saint in 1920.

Madame Vanier spent her final years working beside her son Jean who founded "L’Arche," a series of group homes for the mentally challenged.

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