Lot 1: Sight- 32.25" x 26.25". Frame- 40.75" x 34.5" x 2". Lot 2: Sight- 32.75" x 26.5". Frame- 40.75" x 34.75" x 2".

Oil on canvas portraits by Robert Whale (1805-1887) of Reverend Fuller Coker and his wife Julie Ann Coker of Burford, Ontario. Whale, who emigrated to Canada from England in 1852, first settled in Burford where he hoped to make a living as a portrait artist. He began with commissions to paint some of the local merchants in Elgin, Brant, and Wentworth counties; however, by the mid-1860s he found a more lucrative market selling landscapes and panoramic views of Niagara Falls at agricultural exhibitions. The male sitter, Fuller Coker, was presiding at the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Burford 1865-67, just a few years after the date the pictures were painted in 1861 when Mrs Coker was 56 years of age. Like many of Whale's works, the portraits are unsigned; however, a paper fragment from the original paper backing confirms the artist and is assumed to be the handwriting of Robert Reginald Whale: "Burford __ 1861, Fuller Coker in his sixtieth year, taken by Robert Whale". In 1997 the portraits were selected to be part of a Robert Whale exhibition in Brantford, Ontario.

Good condition with minor scuffs and some inpainting. Both portraits were restored and re-lined in 1990.