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Archer Baker 'CPR in Europe'

Elf (Sir Luke Fildes) (1843-1927)

Price
£3,500
Signed
Signed
Inscribed with title and publication details on reverse
Medium
Watercolour and bodycolour
Dimensions
17 x 11 inches
Provenance
Frank Harris;
The John Franks Collection
Illustrated
Vanity Fair, 13 January 1910, Men of The Day no 1212, 'CPR in Europe'
Literature
Chris Beetles & Alexander Beetles (eds.) Portraits of Vanity Fair: The Charles Sigety Collection, London: Chris Beetles Ltd, 2023, page 185
Exhibited
'Vanity Fair 1869-1914', Church Farm House Museum, Hendon, September-December 1983;
'Portraits of Vanity Fair: The Charles Sigety Collection', Chris Beetles Gallery, London, October-November 2023, no 90

Yorkshire-born Archer Baker (1845-1910) emigrated as a young man to Ontario, Canada, to work for the Canadian Pacific Railway. In 1905, he was appointed the European Manager of the CPR. He died of pneumonia in January 1910, the month of his appearance in Vanity Fair.

"Situated opposite the Nelson Monument [the European office] forms one of the landmarks of Trafalgar Square, and Archer Baker, to whose shrewd brain the magnitude of Canadian Pacific interests in Europe is so largely due, may well be proud of this, the tangible proof of his success. Yet no man is more modest"

TO PUT IN A SEPARATE TEXT BOX:

Though Archer Baker did appear in Vanity Fair on 13 January 1910 as ‘Men of the Day no 1212’, in later reproductions and albums of Vanity Fair, his portrait has been replaced by that of Solomon Barnato Joel (1865-1931), a wealthy businessman and racehorse breeder, painted by an artist who signed ‘H.C.O’, about whom little is known. It is possible that this change was made due to Archer Baker’s death at the time of his Vanity Fair portrait.

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