Photography in the Convent: Grey Nuns, Québec, 1861
Authors
Colleen Skidmore
Abstract
The photograph Grey Nuns enjoys canonical status among connoisseurs and scholars
of nineteenth-century photography in Canada, mainly because of its aesthetic
value and the artistic genius credited to the photographer, George Ellisson. A focus
on the subjects of the photograph and on the historical context in which it was taken
reveals another dimension of its significance as part of the visual history of the Sisters
of Charity of Quebec. The subjects, Célina and Séraphine Roy, were the first
postulants to join the convent on its founding in 1849; during vocations lasting more
than six decades each, these women assumed a variety of administrative roles and
expanded the congregation and its work through eastern Quebec. The abundance
and orderliness of the portrait photographs in the collection of the Sisters of Charity
of Quebec show that such portraits were considered an important part of the historical
record, documenting and linking the convent’s members.
