Draft:Caroline Bucknall-Estcourt

File:Caroline Pole-Carew - , CANADIANDRESSED FOR SLEIGHING IN CANADA, CIRCA 1844handcoloured lithograph on wove paper; signed, titled and inscribed “Sketched & Lithographed by Mrs.jpg

Caroline Bucknall-Estcourt, born Caroline Pole Carew, was born on May 19, 1809.{{Cite web |last=Library and Archives |first=Canada |date=March 11, 2025 |title=Collection Search - Caroline Bucknall Estcourt Album |url=https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/home/record?idnumber=3931084&app=FonAndCol&ecopy= }} in Middlesex, England. Her family consisted of her sister, Marianne {{Cite web |title=Canadian Women Artists History Initiative : Artist Database : Artists : BUCKNALL-ESTCOURT, Caroline |url=https://cwahi.concordia.ca/sources/artists/displayArtist.php?ID_artist=104 |access-date=2025-03-14 |website=cwahi.concordia.ca}}, and parents Lyttleton and Reginald Pole Carew who were upper echelons of British society. Caroline’s mother’s ancestry traced back to King Edward III of England. She met her husband, James Bucknall-Estcourt through a family connection in 1828{{Cite journal |last=Sheppard |first=Patricia |date=2013 |title=Lady Caroline Bucknall-Estcourt: Identity as Performance in a Victorian Album/Lady Caroline Bucknall-Estcourt: l'identité et la représentation dans un album de l'époque victorienne |url=http://www.jstor.org10.2307/jcanaarthist.34.2.211 |journal=Journal of Canadian Art History / Annales d'histoire de l'art Canadien |volume=34 |issue=2 |pages=211–241 |jstor=jcanaarthist.34.2.211 }}. Her father, Reginald Pole Carew, did not view James as a suitable husband for his daughter, therefore Caroline did not marry James until her fathers death in 1837. Caroline Pole Carew became Caroline Bucknall-Estcourt at the age of twenty eight. As a British military wife she traveled the British Empire and spent four years in Canada . Caroline and her husband never had children{{Cite web |title=ESTCOURT, JAMES BUCKNALL BUCKNALL |url=https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/estcourt_james_bucknall_bucknall_8E.html |access-date=2025-03-14 |website=Dictionary of Canadian Biography}}. In 1856 James Bucknall-Estcourt died and Caroline became a widow {{Cite web |title=Canadian Women Artists History Initiative : Artist Database : Artists : BUCKNALL-ESTCOURT, Caroline|url=https://cwahi.concordia.ca/sources/artists/displayArtist.php?ID_artist=104 |access-date=2025-03-14 |website=cwahi.concordia.ca}}.

Caroline Bucknall-Estcourt’s Victorian identity allowed her the privilege to be within the small percentile of women who had access to education. The watercolour painting, Views of Drawing Room at Antony House, Cornwall, portray an image of Caroline and her sisters being taught in the sitting room at Antony House. They are working in desks surrounded by historical paintings, instruments, and learning materials{{Cite journal |last=Sheppard |first=Patricia |date=2013 |title=Lady Caroline Bucknall-Estcourt: Identity as Performance in a Victorian Album / Lady Caroline Bucknall-Estcourt: l'identité et la représentation dans un album de l'époque victorienne |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/jcanaarthist.34.2.211 |journal=Journal of Canadian Art History / Annales d'histoire de l'art Canadien |volume=34 |issue=2 |pages=211–241 |jstor=jcanaarthist.34.2.211 |issn=0315-4297}} . These images indicate a strong education and training in the arts, religion, and politics. Established through social connections, Estcourt’s primary introduction to the fine arts was through guidance of prominent artists.

File:Major General James Bucknall Estcourt M.P (1802-1855) and the companion Portrait of his Wife Caroline (nee Pole-Carew) (1809-1886).jpg

Caroline Bucknall-Escourt was a talented British amateur artist who worked on a Victorian album of loose-leaf artworks throughout her time accompanying her husband on military postings {{Cite web |last=Sheppard |first=Patrica |date=April 2012 |title=Lady Caroline Bucknall-Estcourt's Album Revealing the Expressive Discourse Concealed within a Victorian Cultural Artifact |url=https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/id/eprint/973981/1/Sheppard_MA_2012.pdf |access-date=March 26, 2025 |website=Concordia}} With mediums such as watercolour, paint, pencil, ink, engravings, and etchings, her artwork depicted Canadian and non-Canadian subjects of landscapes, people she met, her home, and both military and Indigenous subjects{{Cite web |last=Canadian Archives |date=March 24, 2025 |title=Caroline Bucknall Estcourt collection (graphic material) |url=https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/home/record?idnumber=19885&app=fonandcol&ecopy= |access-date=March 26, 2025 |website=Government of Canada}} . Examples of her works include:

The Unidentified woman, is an artwork made with watercolour and pencil, and is a well known piece of Bucknall-Escourt’s. It depicts an African-Canadian woman, who she refers to as a “great friend”, and is presumed to have been created near Niagara Falls in 1838-1839 {{Cite book |last=National Archives of Canada |title=Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data |date=1993 |publisher=Minister of Supply and Services Canada |isbn=0660580268 |location=Ottawa, Ontario |publication-date=1993}}.

Our cottage near the Falls of Niagara: Lived there from August 20, 1838 – August 30, 1839, watercolor over pencil on paper, 1838 . This work depicts the house that Caroline and James Bucknall Estcourt lived in near Niagara Falls.

Caroline died in Tetbury, England at the age of 77. She died on November 17, 1886 and was buried in the Holy Trinity Churchyard in Long Newnton, Cotswold District, Gloucestershire, England {{Cite web |title=Caroline Pole-Carew Bucknall-Estcourt (1809-1886)... |url=https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/202070011/caroline-bucknall-estcourt |access-date=2025-03-26 |website=www.findagrave.com |language=en}}. She outlived her husband Major-General James Bucknall-Estcourt by 31 years. She was declared a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath widow in 1856{{Cite web |title=Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Estcourt, James Bucknall Bucknall - Wikisource, the free online library |url=https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_National_Biography,_1885-1900/Estcourt,_James_Bucknall_Bucknall |access-date=2025-03-26 |website=en.wikisource.org |language=en}} . Caroline is best known for her works of Canadian views. Most importantly her Quebec winter scenes, as many of her sketches are lithographed and are a part of the Archives of Canada{{Cite web |title=Canadian Women Artists History Initiative : Artist Database : Artists : BUCKNALL-ESTCOURT, Caroline |url=https://cwahi.concordia.ca/sources/artists/displayArtist.php?ID_artist=104 |access-date=2025-03-26 |website=cwahi.concordia.ca}}

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