Mrs. Carlo Bossi c.1890s

The sitter of this portrait, Mrs. Carlo Bossi, was newly wealthy, thanks to her husband, nearly thirty years her senior, who had made a great success as an owner of grocery stores and real estate in Victoria. This wealth meant that, like Maynard, Bossi was free to pursue interests beyond the domestic sphere. Educated by the Sisters of St. Ann at the first Catholic school in the area specifically for girls, she was accomplished in painting and needlework, praised many times in local papers for her works and the awards they had gained her.

As she did with children, Maynard made efforts to capture something natural and reflective of the women she photographed. In the instance of Bossi, Maynard wanted to highlight the depth of her close friend’s accomplishments. A composed, richly dressed Bossi stands at her easel with brush and paint palette in hand. The flowers are a work in progress, but below the easel rests a completed painting. Craft historian Jennifer Salahub suggests the arrangements of flowers and textiles, as well as the perfectly placed and well-trained dog, situate Bossi as “a woman defined by fashionable domestic activities; the inclusion of needlework in Maynard’s portrait of Petronilla Bossi is in acknowledgment of the sitter’s elevated social position as well as her accomplishments.”

A cabinet card portrait composed with similar thought and care to that of Mrs. Carlo Bossi is W.H. McNeill family, c.1876. It pictures Martha McNeill, the second wife of Captain William H. McNeill, a successful fur trader with the Hudson’s Bay Company, along with her four stepdaughters. Martha was the daughter of Neshaki, a Nisg̱a’a Chief from the area of the Nass Valley and a prominent fur trader in her own right. In this photograph, she sits on the only seat visible in the scene. The chair isn’t one of the many plush Victorian chairs that occupied Maynard’s studio, but one crafted from branches, a decision perhaps made with sensitivity to Martha’s Nisg̱a’a heritage.

Maynard applied the same sensitivity we see with Bossi and McNeill to her own self-portraits. This is most striking when comparing Maynard’s portraits to those of her taken by others. For instance, in a tintype photograph attributed to either Noah Shakespeare (1839–1921) or William M. Ashman (1861–1902), Maynard appears in a harsh profile with her youngest daughter awkwardly draped across her lap. We learn little about Maynard beyond her status as a mother and her mug shot–style likeness. Certainly, compared to Maynard’s self-portraits, or to her portrait of Mrs. Bossi, the difference is clear.