The following is from Janice Frost of Lake Tahoe, Nevada. She is seeking more information.

Frederick Arthur Verner is the son of Arthur Verner, Armaugh Co., Ireland whose brother was Sir William Verner of Verner's Bridge. The barontage is now extinct since the Verner male descendancy is no longer. Only daughters remain in that lineage. Frederick Arthur Verner's ancestors can be found in Sir Bernard Burke's " Extinct Peerage and Barontage" under the heading: VERNER.

Since the Barontage is extinct, you will have difficulty finding this record in recent reprints of Burke's volumes.

An uncle of Frederick's named John Willoughby Verner lived in London in 1880s so some of the family moved from Ireland to London whereas others moved to Canada. Frederick would have visited his Uncle John Willoughby Verner (who spent some time in South Africa).

My knowledge of this family stems from my genealogical search for the parents of our John Wadby Verner, also a lithographer of Montreal, Canada. His daughter inherited the Sir William Verner estate so we know there is a connection. After viewing the property in about 1957, Isabel Helen (Verner) Mackedie refused it.

We are wondering where our connection is to Frederick Arthur Verner. Is he a brother of John Wadby Verner? Or a first cousin? Both were into lithography. We know that if Fred had married, he did not have any Verner sons or grandsons with the name of "Verner" because they would have been contacted for the inheritance property.

I have more questions than information. However, this may be of interest to readers.

Born at Sheridan Ontario, Frederick Verner was a painter who became a founding member in 1862 of the Ontario Society of Artists. In 1856, he went to England and enlisted in the West Yorkshire Regiment and then served in the British Legion, fighting with Garibaldi in Italy in 1860-1861.

In London he studied at the Leigh's School and the South Kensington Art Schools, and then in 1862, he returned to Canada. Eighteen years later he returned to London, where he died in 1928.

Source:
Clare Bice, Canadian Painting, 1850-1950, The National Gallery of Canada.

By 1874, Frederick Arthur Verner (1836-1928) had hit his stride professionally. Joan Murray writes: "He could devote himself full time to painting and by the spring of 1875 had produced a surprising amount of new work. Among his paintings were his first subjects of evening or night..." This moonlit encampment dates to the following year, 1876, and falls within a period of outstanding accomplishment.

Between 1873 and 1876, Verner brought to his painting a greater truthfulness, attention to detail, drama and confidence than he had previously demonstrated. In today's vernacular, Verner was in "the zone". This halcyon period of consistently exemplary oil painting ended by 1877 after which, according to Murray, many of his best works would now be executed in watercolour.

This painting, like so many other great landscapes from this period, displays Verner's "mystical use of distance". The light of the moon in the deep background illuminates a private domestic scene which Murray suggests "approximates the nineteenth century's version of the genre picture...families sitting about their ideal home..." She continues: "The way (Verner) painted Indians reveals how he felt about them." This feeling, which ran quite contrary to the current view of many of his peers, was one of deep respect.