Paul Caron has captured a bustling Christmas market scene in winter, shoppers in fur coats consider toys, including red horse-drawn toy wagons. A horse-drawn sleigh stands nearby, while decorated stalls, evergreen trees, and festive garlands combine to evoke the holiday spirit. 

This watercolour by Paul Caron has retained a freshness and vibrancy rare in older works on paper. “Caron] worked in water colour using only distilled water and took great care with the selection of his materials to ensure permanency." Colin S. MacDonald wrote back in 1967 in A Dictionary of Canadian Artists, Volume One (1967).

Certainly he succeeded with this one!

Paul Caron was a highly accomplished newspaper illustrator of the early 20th century for the Montreal newspapers La Presse and then The Montreal Star, the now defunct but long-lived English-language afternoon daily.

The creative painting he did beyond  the confines of the newspaper has left a legacy of watercolours of significant urban interest of the period and are of outstanding quality. While we cannot be certain, the columns might suggest a location adjacent to the market at Montreal’s Place Jacques Cartier over to the steps at the Ernest Cormier Court House.

Caron was one of the numerous artists whose formation began at the Art Association of Montreal under the tutelage of William Brymner and Maurice Cullen.  At the Art Association of Montreal's Annual Spring Exhibitions of 1931 and 1937, Caron twice won the Jessie Dow Prize for excellence in watercolour, among the most prestigious at the time. He exhibited with the important associations of his day including R.C.A., Canadian National Exhibition (C.N.E.), the Ontario Society of Artists (O.S.A.), the Art Association of Montreal (A.A.M.), was a member of Montreal's Pen and Pencil Club and was elected as an Associate of the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts (R.C.A.) in 1939.