‘Devastated’: Family heirloom accidentally donated to downtown Victoria Value Village

This past weekend, a family heirloom was accidentally donated to Value Village in downtown Victoria, and now, the family seeks to be reunited with their missing piece. 

The heirloom is a hand-carved wooden lamp that was designed and made by the great-great-grandfather of the individual who has misplaced this item, Suzanne Robillard. 

She says the lamp has been passed down through her family for generations, beginning with its maker, Clovis Sénécal (1863-1939).

Robillard says that this lamp was accidentally taken to Value Village by her brothers who were helping her move. 

“Unfortunately, as we learned yesterday, it was sold almost immediately,” said Robillard. 

“My dad is devastated. My brothers didn’t realize the full significance of the lamp, but it’s something I was really hoping to keep in the family.”

Robillard explained that the lamp is her family’s earliest known heirloom linking generations of her family’s tradition of artistic craftsmanship. 

“At the root of this legacy was Clovis, Chief Draughtsman for the Geological Survey of Canada in the early 1900s,” she said.  

She imagines Sénécal drawing detailed geographical maps and making field notes in a room lit by the very same lamp she is now hoping to recover. 

Sénécal put his cartography skills to work all over Canada, but his work on Vancouver Island resulted in some of the earliest detailed maps of Victoria, Duncan, Nanaimo, as well as Northern BC. 

“Today, many of his official works are preserved in major archives, including Yale University’s Beinecke Library,” said Robillard. 

When Sénécal passed away, his son Ernest Sénécal, a painter who gained recognition in the 1940s, had the lamp passed to him, and when he died, Robillard’s grandmother Marie took it, then it went to her father before coming into her possession. 

“To me and my dad, the lamp represents a direct thread linking us to our ancestors, as we both work on art of our own,” she said.  

“From hand-rendered maps to painted tableaux to pencil portraits, the Sénécal lineage has quietly worked by the light of this lamp for generations.”

Robillard is now pleading with the community at large to have the lamp returned to her.

She asks that whoever purchased the lamp email her at lampsenecal@gmail.com.