On this Earth Day, we celebrate Maria Frances Ann Morris Miller (1810-1875), a mid-19th-century Atlantic-Canadian artist and teacher whose work demonstrated a profound appreciation for the flora of her natural surroundings. The New Brunswick Museum houses an important collection of paintings and prints by this exceptional Nova Scotian artist who influenced generations of Atlantic Canadian women artists.
Education and Teaching Career
After completing her studies at Dalhousie College in Halifax, Miller joined her mother’s school in 1831, where she offered classes in drawing and painting, specializing in landscape and figure. Her educational influence extended beyond Nova Scotia to New Brunswick, where she operated short-term schools in both Saint John and Fredericton, establishing her reputation as an influential teacher throughout the Atlantic provinces.
Botanical Documentation
In the early 1830s, Miller began a significant artistic project under the guidance of Titus Smith, the first Secretary of Agriculture for Nova Scotia. She created a series of watercolours meticulously documenting the province’s wild flowers. These detailed paintings formed the foundation for a portfolio of lithographs titled Wild Flowers of Nova Scotia, which she published in 1840, followed by an addition in 1853.
As her work gained recognition, Miller expanded her botanical documentation to include neighboring provinces. In 1866, she published The Wild Flowers of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and a year later, she re-issued her first collection as Wild Flowers of British North America. The New Brunswick Museum proudly houses examples from all these important portfolios.
Newly Discovered Treasures
As seen in Image 1, one of Miller’s exquisite watercolour paintings depicts the “Viburnum Lantanoides – Moose Bush,” created between 1835-1840. This watercolour on card, measuring 31.4 x 23 cm, came to the museum through the bequest of Mary Kearney Odell in 1937.
Image 2 shows a hand-colored lithograph based on Miller’s original painting, titled “Viburnum Lantanoides. Moose Bush: Black Berries and White Blossoms, Large Green Leaves.” Published in 1853 by A. & W. MacKinlay and John Snow as part of the Wild Flowers of Nova Scotia collection, this print measures 31.8 x 25.4 cm and was bequeathed to the museum by Mary Kearney Odell in 1938.
Recently, during the cataloguing of Miller’s lithographs, museum staff made an exciting discovery – a dozen original paintings (sometimes called watercolour drawings) were located and identified.
Completed between 1835 and 1840, these works are in pristine condition, appearing never to have been exhibited. They came to the New Brunswick Museum through the Odell family of Fredericton and Halifax, some of whom may have been among Miller’s students.
Interestingly, it appears that Miller completed multiple copies of her original paintings, as similar versions exist in the collections of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and Library and Archives Canada.
Artistic and Scientific Legacy
Miller’s works are renowned not only for their aesthetic quality but also for their botanical accuracy, representing an important early contribution to the appreciation of the local natural world. By virtue of their subject matter and approach, her botanical illustrations created an avenue of artistic expression particularly accessible to other women artists of the era.
On this Earth Day, Maria Morris Miller’s careful observation and artistic rendering of Atlantic Canada’s native flora reminds us of the importance of documenting and preserving our natural heritage through both scientific and artistic lenses.
