David Rousseaux Morrice captures the quiet poetry of the Seine with a restrained modern sensibility. Two riverboats moored along the embankment, a cluster of trees, and a few small figures on the stone steps convey a timeless sense of calm. The palette of muted greens, ochres, and greys, together with the simplified planes and soft reflections, reflects Morrice’s poetic understatement.

Morrice was an artist within the circle of friendships of the Beaver Hall Group women and other artists of his generation. The provenance of this work is the estate of a well known model of the period, a lady who posed for Morrice, and best known as included in some of Edwin Holgate’s paintings.

David Morrice was born in Toronto. His father, Arthur, was a brother of the artist James Wilson Morrice. David went to Upper Canada College and on to Appleby before going to McGill University. While he was a commerce student at McGill, he was a tennis player of great accomplishment, winner of intercollegiate tournaments and internationally as well. After a limited professional career in business, in the mid-1930s Morrice resumed his earlier interest in art, studying in Paris at the Académie Colarossi and at the Grande Chaumière (1936-37), then London Heatherley's School, London, England (1934-1936).

During World War II, Morrice had a distinguished military career, from 1940 first in the Royal Canadian Artillery and by 1944 as a Major with the First Canadian Army, Western Front. He was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in June of 1945. Shortly after receiving the OBE Morrice was transferred to the Canadian Intelligence Corps, returned to Canada, retired from active service by the end of 1945, and got back to his painting. Morrice had his first one man exhibition at Montreal’s now iconic Dominion Gallery in March of 1950, an exhibition reviewed in the Montreal Gazette (March 8, 1950).