The Canadian watercolour of Corisande

Subject: The Corisande painting
Date: Mon, 29 May 2000 21:28:04 -0700
From: "Nicole & Tom" <ntbefurt@home.com>

Hello,

I am writing from Kamloops, BC in Canada.

I was searching on the internet for information about a late 19th century painting that we inherited from my grandmother. During my search I came upon the internet site for your hotel and was surprised and delighted to find reference to the ship in our watercolor painting. Within the history you mention that the original owner may have named the hotel after a ship that he travelled on. The information that you gave about the ship is the first information in 15 years that we have seen and with the difficulting in obtaining information I thought that perhaps you may be interested in the history of our piece.

The painting that we have here in the house is called "The Corisande". The artist's name is difficult to read but it appears to be
DeSuille. My grandmother, Margaret Russell bought it in Whitehorse, Yukon around 1935. She had told me that as far as she
knew it had come around "The Horn" from England in 1890.

Within the next couple of days I will try and get a photograph scanned in and sent to you. But in the meantime I hope that this
information may add pieces to your puzzle as well as mine.

Sincerely,

Nicole M. Befurt

Subject: The Corisande Painting
Date: Tue, 30 May 2000 15:59:08 -0700
From: "Nicole & Tom" <ntbefurt@mail.ocis.net>


There are two references to the Corisande in our painting. One is on the bow of the ship and the other is at the base of the
painting. The ship itself is a 3 masted wooden ship (a schooner perhaps). Only one small mast is unfurled as the ship is in a fiercestorm. I can see 6 seamen on the deck with one, supposedly the captain at the wheel. After examining the painting more closely(with a magnifying glass) I am still unsure about the artists' name. It definitely starts with De then maybe an S or a J, but the S looks somewhat the same as the S's in Corisande. After the S it looks like 6 little vertical dashes.

After I wrote to you last night I had a chance to search a bit more on the internet. I also found a reference to a Corisande schooner but this one was lost in Lake Huron in the Great Lakes of Canada. From what my grandmother told me about the painting before she died I'm really not sure if the Lake Huron ship would be the same as the one in our painting. I have pasted the information below in case you have not seen it before.

I had a chance today to take some pictures and get them developed. They are enclosed as an attachment with this e-mail. I am
interested to know if your print is the same as this painting or possibly a different version of the same ship.

I am really pleased about receiving some lead on the painting after all these years. Thank you for your help.

Sincerely,
Nicole M. Befurt

CORISANDE
Other names : built as US schooner STAR
Official no. : C71163
Type at loss : schooner-barge, wood, 2-mast, bulk freight
Build info : 1873, R. Rice, Marine City, MI (builder Whitney?) as a 3-mast schooner
Specs : 137x26x11 292gc 275nc
Date of loss : 1913
Place of loss : off Sarnia, Ont.
Lake : Huron
Type of loss : storm
Loss of life : ?
Carrying : ?
Detail : Struck by a gale and sank as she pulled out into the open lake from the St. Clair R.
The hulk was later acquired by J. Miller but was too badly wrecked to use.
Out of Sarnia
Sold Canadian before 1882.
Sources: mmgl,ns2,clu

I found one more reference to the same ship shown above, I have pasted the information below for you;

Great Lakes October Shipwreck calendar

Artists name	name on painting

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