Collection consists of three volumes containing 84 portraits of prominent individuals in the Canadian community in the period around Confederation. Each portrait is accompanied by an explanatory text by Fennings Taylor, the Deputy Clerk and Clerk Assistant of the Legislative Council of Canada.
Volume I contains portraits of Viscount Monck, Rev. Francis Fulford, Hon. John A. Macdonald, Hon. S.L. Tilley, Sir Louis Fenwick Williams, Sir Etienne Pascal Tache, Rev. Alexander Mathieson, Hon. John Sandfiled Macdonald, Hon. George Moffat, Hon. George Etienne Cartier, William Dawson, Hon. James Ferrier, Rev. Jean Jacques Lartigue, Hon. William Morris, Sir Richard Graves Macdonnell, Hon, Edward Bowen, Hon. Antoine Aime Dorion, Hon. Alexander Campbell, Rev. William Leitch, James Hodges, Hon. Joseph Howe, Hon. Rene Edouard Caron, Lt. Colonel Irvine, Hon. Thomas Talbot, Charles John Brydges, Rev. John Thomas Mullock, Hon. Issac Buchanan, Hon. Joseph Cauchon, Samuel Wentworth Monk.
Volume II contains portraits of Hon. Thomas D'Arcy McGee, Sir Narcisse Fortunat Belleau, Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes, Rev. John Bethune, Hon. Adam Ferguson, Sir John Michel, Hon. Alexander Tilloch Galt, Rev. Henry Wilkes, Hon. John Hamilton Gray, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Bouchette, Sir William Edmond Logan, Hon. Frederick Bowker Terrington Carter, Rev. Charles Felix Cazeau, Hon. John Prince, Sir Dominick Daly, Hon. George Brown, Major Campbell, Hon. F. Evanturel, Hon. John Young, Hon. Hector Louis Langevin, Hon. Jonathan Sewell, Hugh Allan, Hon. Joseph Ulrio Tessier, Rev. Robert Burns, Hon. William Hamilton Merritt, Sir Allan Napier MacNab, Charles Joseph Coursol, Rev. Matthew Richey, T.D. Harrington, Hon. Peter McGill.
Volume III - Honorable Sir John Beverly Robinson, Bart., C.B.,D.C.L., Honorable James Morris, William Price, Esq., Honorable Charles Tupper, C.B., M.D., Honorable Frederick Auguste Quesnel, His Excellency the Honorable Francis Hncks, C.B., Honorable Robert Baldwin, C.B., Honorable P.J.O. Chaveau, LL.D., Reverend William Ormiston, D.D., Honorable John Hillyard Cameron, Q.C., D.C.L., Honorable John Hamilton Hawksbury, Honorable Louis Joseph Papineau, Honorable and Right Reverend John Strachan, D.D., LL.D., Honorable Charles Dewey Day, Walter Shanly, Esq., M.P., William Molson, Esq., Alexander Carlisle Buchanan, Esq., Honorable Charles Richard Ogden, Right Rev., George Jehoshaphat Mountain, D.D., D.C.L., Honorable James Cockburn, Honorable Davis Lewis Macpherson, Colonel the Honorable C.M. de Salaberry, C.B., Honorable Henry Starnes, M.L.C., Reverend W. Agar Adamson, D.C.L.
