PROFESSIONAL ARTISTS CREATED a significant number of important paintings or drawings of Gold Rush subjects, but many other individuals also contributed to the artistic legacy of this period. Some were trained as artists, but stayed in California only briefly. Others pursued related careers as engravers or illustrators, publishing handbooks, prints, or letter sheets of mining tales and activities. Yet others probably indulged in sketching or making watercolors as a pastime to relieve the boredom and loneliness they experienced far from home. The images they recorded along riverbeds and in mining camps and towns throughout much of Northern California tend to be relatively small and on paper, but offer telling observations of mining technologies as well as Gold Rush lifestyles. For the most part, they date to the months immediately following the discovery of gold, and are valuable in reflecting the impressions of Argonauts upon their arrival in California, as well as early efforts to grapple with the challenges of finding shelter and food while attempting to procure gold under unpredictable circumstances. Most likely made for personal enjoyment, to send home, or to share with camp acquaintances, as well as for publication and mass distribution, their studies are also often impressive visually.
Among the first arrivals in California following the discovery of gold were would-be miners who were in the Caribbean or the South Pacific when word of the gold discovery spread. Nearer to California, they heard the news considerably earlier than did their colleagues on the East Coast or in Europe.
John Prendergast, an Englishman, was in Honolulu when he heard the rumors of gold. He arrived in San Francisco in July 1848, and by the following spring—when most other American and European artists were just starting out for California—was selling views of San Francisco for twenty-five dollars apiece.1 A skilled draftsman who worked in pencil, crayon, and watercolor, Prendergast also made a number of drawings to be translated into lithographs. Among his few surviving paintings is the watercolor San Francisco after Fire (fig. 10), which shows the aftermath of a blaze that swept through Portsmouth Square on 22 June 1851. With the sky now clearing, the scene offers striking contrasts between the rubble of the demolished buildings and those unscathed by flames. The watercolor deftly portrays the activity: Some residents gather across from the scorched area, others make preparations for rebuilding. Tables, chairs, and other personal effects offer a focal point in the foreground, with hundreds of figures summarily indicated beyond. Prendergast ably demonstrates his ability to organize a complex subject effectively; in addition, the subtle variations in the washes used to describe buildings, shadows, and emerging daylight are to the artist’s credit.
FIG. 10. John Prendergast, San Francisco after Fire, 1851. Watercolor on paper, 7¾ × 13¾ in. Oakland Museum of California, gift of the estate of Marjorie Eaton by exchange.
Likewise, Augusto Ferran and José Baturone disembarked in San Francisco in early 1849 from Cuba. Their best-known images of the Gold Rush are from the Album Californiano, popularly known as Tipos Californianos. This series of lithographs offers striking depictions of miners upon their return to San Francisco from forays to the goldfields (fig. 11). The images are distinctive for the vivid personalities of their subjects, which are portrayed acutely and with humor.
The twelve lithographs comprising Album Californiano were published as a set in Havana, an indication of the breadth of interest in the Gold Rush. Although believed to have been printed as early as 1849, the series was more likely to have been issued in 1850, after the artists could observe miners returning from the diggings in greater numbers. This is also the date on two accomplished paintings Ferran created of San Francisco (figs. 12 and 13). In both views—one a bustling city scene—the port is bathed in a glowing yellow light that unifies the compositions and endows them with a spiritual quality. In their use of light as an emotional element and in the sensitive depiction of the myriad details of the busy harbor, the paintings show parallels to the work of J. M. W. Turner and to contemporary German romantic painting.
FIG. 11. Augusto Ferran, artist, L. Marquier, publisher, Album Californiano, 12. Realizacion. Selling Off., 1850. Lithograph, 10⅛ × 8 in. California Historical Society, San Francisco.
Only in late spring 1849, however, did a significant number of artists reach San Francisco. For some arrivals, gold mining seems to have been a secondary objective. Among these appears to be William McIlvaine, who received a graduate diploma in Philadelphia and studied painting in Europe. McIlvaine traveled to the Tuolumne and Merced rivers upon his arrival in California to collect material for an illustrated book on the goldfields. Published in 1850, his Sketches of Scenery and Notes of Personal Adventure in California and Mexico, which consists of sixteen plates as well as text, was one of the first travel accounts on the Gold Rush. Panning Gold, California (fig. 14) was one of the elegant watercolors that McIlvaine produced during his six-month stay in California, and may have been intended as a model for an oil painting as well as a study for an illustration.2 In showing gold panning, McIlvaine depicts an activity widespread during the early months of the Gold Rush, when gold was more readily available, especially in the richest regions, such as along the Tuolumne River.
In McIlvaine’s beautifully rendered watercolor, the mining activities fail to distract from the surrounding landscape. In contrast to the bustle of activity associated with some mining sites—as in Miners in the Sierra (fig. 43), for instance—the figures in Panning Gold, California seem quite isolated. Despite the presence of tents across the river and cattle in the distance at the left, a sense of calm pervades the composition. While one man balances his shovel on a rock and his companion studies the contents of his gold pan, the spectator’s eye is drawn to the steep hillsides that enclose the river in the background. Although it would seem that the water should race through such a small opening, the river—and indeed all the other elements—in McIlvaine’s composition is placid. With the exception of the figures, all seems to be still, an effect reinforced by the muted pink and gold tones that dominate the composition.
FIG. 12. Augusto Ferran, San Francisco: View from the Hills to Northwest, 1850. Oil on paper, 11⅞ × 23⅞ in. The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
FIG. 13. Augusto Ferran, Vista de San Francisco, 1850. Oil on paper, 11⅞ × 23⅞ in. The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
FIG. 14. William McIlvaine, Panning Gold, California, n.d. Watercolor over pencil on paper, 18⅝ × 27½ in. M. & M. Karolik Collection, courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 51.2534
FIG. 15. William McIlvaine, Prairie, California, 1854. Watercolor on paper, 19⅝ × 27 in. Gift of Maxim Karolik, courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 53.2448
Although it depicts more figures and activities, Prairie, California (fig. 15), created in 1854, also appears to be a sylvan scene, in part because of the space given over to the open field and undifferentiated sky. In this setting, which has been identified as being near Sonora, the small tents (one draped with an American flag) illustrate the shelters miners hastily assembled in open fields, with carts and mules acknowledging the principal means of transportation to mining sites and to acquire supplies.3 Although McIlvaine portrays a number of figures here, the camp seems remote and sparsely populated.
In drawings such as these, McIlvaine created some of the finest early depictions of the California Gold Rush.4 However, because he visited rural mining sites for the most part and had returned East by November 1849, his accomplishments went largely unnoticed by San Francisco’s nascent art community. Back home, McIlvaine continued to make and exhibit paintings and watercolors inspired by his travels. He seems, however, to have had little influence in stimulating interest in California subjects among other eastern artists.
A number of views dating to 1849, such as W. Taber’s Steam Gold Dredger Ascending the Sacramento (fig. 16), record historic moments, here the voyage of the first gold dredger in California. This charming drawing, which appears to have been sketched on the spot, served as the basis for an illustration that was published in Century Magazine over forty years later, to accompany a retrospective article on the Gold Rush.5 The subject of Taber’s vignette was a small steamboat that was shipped to San Francisco in parts by one of the first joint mining companies to leave the East Coast. Capitalizing on the large quantity of freight that could be transported by ship, Argonauts aboard the Edward Everett brought along parts to assemble a large scow in California. In hopes of successfully dredging along the Sacramento River and its tributaries, they constructed the stern-wheel driven vessel with a workshop to house the crew and allow space to divide the proceeds. The idea, however, proved impractical, and “so completely convinced [were] her owners of the absurdity of the scheme that they quietly dismantled and disposed of her.”6 Taber’s record of this short-lived experiment shows a number of passengers in conversation on their journey upriver. Their striking silhouettes and the vivid white highlights add charm to the drawing, and contrast with the dense smoke that spews forth from the steam engine.
William Birch McMurtrie’s watercolor View of Telegraph Hill and City, North on Montgomery Street (fig. 17), painted in late 1849, records the growth San Francisco was experiencing. The hill topped by a freshly made grave that confronts the viewer in the foreground testifies to the loss of life during the Gold Rush, but the scene is otherwise lively. Emphasis is now given to the buildings, many of which have two stories and are constructed of wood. Although somewhat crudely drawn, the scene nonetheless offers substantial information and served as a model for George Burgess’s retrospective canvas San Francisco in July, 1849 (see fig. 60).
Other artists who created early views of San Francisco include Harrison Eastman, who apparently spent only a brief period at the mines following his arrival in the fall of 1849. After the mining company with which he took passage to San Francisco disbanded, Eastman was employed at the San Francisco post office.7 Eastman soon found time to record local urban landmarks. In his watercolor Saint Francis Hotel, Cor. Clay and Dupont Sts. (fig. 18), the crude lawn fronting the building documents the primitive conditions in the city. Only recently constructed, the Saint Francis was, according to accounts, one of the few reputable hotels in the city. Judged to be “the only hotel at present where respectable ladies are taken in,” the rooms were, nonetheless, separated only by cloth partitions, and therefore afforded boarders little privacy.8 In contrast to the well-dressed party in the center of Eastman’s watercolor, the adjacent tents, one bearing a “RESTAURANT” sign, give evidence of how hastily the community had been established.
FIG. 16. W. Taber, Steam Gold Dredger Ascending the Sacramento, 1849. Ink and gouache on paper mounted on board, 4¼ × 10⅞ in. California Historical Society, San Francisco, gift of Lawton R. Kennedy.
FIG. 17. William Birch McMurtrie, View of Telegraph Hill and City, North on Montgomery Street, 1849. Watercolor and graphite on paper, 10 × 14 in. California Historical Society, San Francisco, gift of Theodora N. McMurtrie.
FIG. 18. Harrison Eastman, Saint Francis Hotel, Cor. Clay and Dupont Sts., 1849. Watercolor on paper mounted on cardboard, 9¾ × 9½ in. California Historical Society, San Francisco, gift of Templeton Crocker.
Soon after he painted Saint Francis Hotel, Eastman established himself as a designer and engraver. He contributed illustrations to local journals, and made a number of engravings from drawings by his close friend Charles Christian Nahl. Like other artists in California at the time, Eastman realized his greatest financial success producing prints and illustrations, first in the employ of lithographers in San Francisco and later as the co-owner of an engraving company.9
In addition to a demand for prints of San Francisco and mining sites, there was also some market for portraiture.
Every man wanted a sketch of his claim, or his cabin, or some spot with which he identified himself; and as they all offered to pay very handsomely, I was satisfied that I could make paper and pencil much more profitable tools to work with than pick and shovel.10
Among the first portrait painters to come to notice in San Francisco was Samuel Stillman Osgood, who had studied painting in Boston and traveled to Europe before opening a successful studio in the East. Arriving in California in August 1849 to try his luck at mining, Osgood soon reverted to the career for which he was trained. He took up residence in San Francisco, where he painted a portrait of General John A. Sutter (fig. 19) from a sketch made at Sutter’s Fort on his return from the goldfields. Osgood made five versions of this portrait, and took at least one of them to New York with him in November 1849. John Sartain used it to create an engraving of Sutter. The print was popular in the East, bringing Osgood considerable attention.
FIG. 19. Samuel Stillman Osgood, General John A. Sutter, ca. 1849. Oil on bed ticking, 29⅛ × 23¾ in. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Museum Purchase. 54768
FIG. 20. Artist unknown, “A.G.” A Lucky Striker, n.d. Watercolor on cardboard, 6¾ × 5¾ in. Collection of Dr. Oscar and Trudy Lemer.
Osgood shows his subject wearing a white shirt, jacket, and tied scarf, rather than the military attire Sutter chose for later portraits. Seated gazing toward his left, Sutter is sympathetically portrayed. He is formally posed, but with an alert countenance. The monochromatic background focuses all attention on the subject, who appears both lifelike and approachable. This portrait appears modest in comparison to William Smith Jewett’s later depictions of this pioneer (see figs. 37 and 38).
A quite different portrait subject is depicted in A Lucky Striker, by an artist known only by the initials “A. G.” (fig. 20). Although the head of the fortunate miner is outsized in proportion to his body, the expressive face and the sensitively rendered landscape background suggest he was painted by a skilled hand. The pose and details of the features suggest that the painter may have worked from a daguerreotype model. Nonetheless, the figure is presented with immediacy. As was common in photographs, the miner is dressed in a workshirt and holds a pick. His neatly combed hair and beard and fresh garments have more in common with the appearance of prospective miners than with descriptions of those working claims. And the large gold nugget the young man holds may reflect his aspirations rather than any success in the placer country. However, as the welded gold pan at the left indicates, this view was recorded early in the Gold Rush period, and the subject may indeed be one of the favored early arrivals whose labors were amply rewarded.
Another early image is John Henry Dunnel’s Sutter’s Mill at Coloma (fig. 22), made a number of months after he first arrived in the mining regions. Dated 1850, this watercolor offers a visual record of how thoroughly the land around the site where James Marshall discovered gold was excavated in the initial mining season. In this scene, the tailrace in which gold was first spotted has been diverted, but the mill is not yet enclosed. The lumber stacked in the background attests to the other commercial activity that took place at this spot.
FIG. 21. Washington F. Friend, Placer Mining, n.d. Watercolor on paper, 12⅛ × 16⅛ in. The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
Washington F. Friend’s watercolor Placer Mining (fig. 21) is undated, but likely made no earlier than 1850, as the mining activity is focused around a variety of sluice box or long tom. This device, which had an iron sieve at one end, allowed miners to wash dirt continuously without having to remove their equipment from the water. Although offering much greater speed, the long tom also required miners to work together in groups. Mining thus rapidly became a joint venture, no longer the individual effort that William McIlvaine had recorded in 1849 in Panning Gold, California (see fig. 14). Friend’s watercolor, perhaps made in preparation for the panorama he was undertaking, represents a prospecting operation at a likely location along a ledge where a rock outcropping juts into the river.11
FIG. 22. John Henry Dunnel, Sutter’s Millat Coloma, 1850. Watercolor on illustration board, 8⅝ × 6¾ in. The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
The challenge of mining for gold after the easily accessible flakes and nuggets had been removed in the early months of the Gold Rush is reflected in images showing increasingly complex technologies requiring group efforts. Mining Scene: Diverting a River (fig. 23) by an unidentified artist, shows an ambitious operation, in which many miners are working together to uncover an old riverbed that lies beneath a substantial layer of overburden. Here they gather to “bench out” the overlying ground with picks and shovels. The beauty of the watercolor, in which houses and large oaks underneath a clear sky in the distance form a secondary center of interest, contrasts with the arduous labor shown in the foreground. That earth is being removed by hand, rather than washed away by the force of water, indicates that this scene was encountered before 1852, when much more efficient hydraulic mining methods would have been used.12
Mining in California (fig. 24), also by an unidentified artist, shows the process of mining quicksilver, which began in California even before gold was discovered, and became increasingly important as the Gold Rush progressed. At New Almaden, fifteen miles southeast of San Jose, quicksilver occurred in scattered deposits, and was being extracted by 1846. The first quicksilver concentration discovered in North America, the New Almaden mines were distinguished by the abundance and high mercury content of their ore. Miners used quicksilver when extracting gold in combination with other elements as it amalgamates with gold but evaporates when heated, allowing gold to be collected easily. The availability of quicksilver nearby at New Almaden is credited with greatly enhancing the quantity of gold taken from the Sierra and reducing the cost of its recovery. Unlike gold mining, however, the process of isolating quicksilver from the cinnabar in which it occurs naturally required considerable technology, which was introduced into California by the Mexican workforce at New Almaden.13 Mining in California shows the furnaces used to heat cinnabar at the left middle ground; above and to the right lies the mill where the product was pulverized. The drawing most likely dates to around 1853 when “six furnaces with a capacity of 15,000 pounds of ore were kept going day and night. Seven or eight days were required for one furnace operation—charging, firing, and discharging.”14 The beauty of Mining in California, with its delicate washes and careful notations of the Mexican workers and their families along the pathways and in communal areas, belies the perils of processing quicksilver. Little would the viewer of this lovely scene suspect that “the men working at the furnaces were so much affected by the noxious vapors that they were kept at work three or four weeks only, after which a fresh set of workmen were put in their place.”15
FIG. 23. Artist unknown, Mining Scene: Diverting a River, n.d. Watercolor on paper, 12 × 9 in. Collection of Dr. Oscar and Trudy Lemer.
FIG. 24. Artist unknown, Mining in California, n.d. Watercolor on paper, 12½ × 18 in. The Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Okla.
Among those who joined the Gold Rush for reasons other than to acquire mineral wealth was John Woodhouse Audubon. Admitting that his interest was piqued by the remarkable tales of gold he heard, Audubon also recalled his father’s admonition while he had been in Texas in 1845 to “Push on to California, [where] you will find new animals and birds at every change in the formation of the country, and birds from Central America will delight you.” He joined Colonel Webb’s California Company, and because of his “backwoods experience” was selected as second-in-command of the ill-fated group, which—in wanting to get an early start—chose a less popular route via New Orleans and northern Mexico to the Pacific.’16 Leaving in February 1849, the party, inexperienced in wilderness travel, was ravaged by cholera and robbed of nearly half its assets in Mexico. Audubon was unable to pursue his scientific or artistic interests during his journey.’17 It was only when they stopped so each man might celebrate the Fourth of July holiday as he pleased that Audubon “unpacked . . . paper and pencils” and made his first surviving sketch from his journey through Mexico.’18 Two weeks later in a remote region some 160 miles northeast of Guadalajara, his Twenty-Five Miles West of Jesus Maria (fig. 25) shows his group’s encampment in a broad valley beneath looming sandstone outcroppings. The fine detail given to the tents, figures, and trees amongst the broad watercolor washes attests to Audubon’s considerable skills as a draftsman.
Arriving in California nine months after their journey began, Audubon’s company encountered rain-soaked mining camps and astronomical prices. Assessing their situation (they were “in a forlorn condition, almost without clothes”), Audubon felt responsible for helping recoup the group’s losses. He explained that “. . . though I never intended to go to the mines myself, I feel now for the sake of the men who stood by me, that I must stay by them.” This comment is followed by the complaint that “my paints and canvas have been left on the desert, my few specimens lost or thrown away; and lack of time, and the weakness produced by my two illnesses . . . , and the monotonous food, have robbed me of all enthusiasm.”19
FIG. 25. John Woodhouse Audubon, Twenty-five Miles West of Jesus Maria, 1850. Watercolor and pencil on paper, 10¼ × 13 in. Southwest Museum, Los Angeles, gift of Eva Scott Fenyes. 22.G.978 AB
Thus Audubon set out with a number of his party for the southern mines early in the new year. In the ensuing weeks, Audubon visited a number of camps, where he made drawings and written observations about the surrounding landscape and mining life. His depiction of a leafless oak in Murphy’s New Diggings (fig. 26), made on 9 February 1850, demonstrates Audubon’s fondness for trees and the attention he gave his drawings, even when they were made under adverse circumstances. Although beautifully rendered, the scene is bleak. Audubon voiced his discouragement in his journal entry the following day: “Everything seems against us—weather and season, water and rain, interrupt us in all our attempts at work, and ill-luck seems to follow us.”20 Murphy’s New Diggings is characteristic of Audubon’s pencil drawings in offering considerable detail, and in the color notations and comments inscribed on it. These indicate that Audubon intended to use them as studies for watercolors or paintings. Although he occasionally included figures, for the most part—as here—Audubon described trees or significant land forms. In effect, his acutely recorded drawings are illustrations, giving little evidence of the turmoil that accompanied his trip or the effects on the travelers of the spectacular landscape vistas he described in his journal.
FIG. 26. John Woodhouse Audubon, Murphy’s New Diggings (Oak of the Hills), ca. 1850. Pencil on paper, 10¼ × 13 in. Southwest Museum, Los Angeles, gift of Eva Scott Fenyes. 22.G.978D
The beauty of his drawing Hawkin’s Bar (fig. 27) also belies the frustration Audubon must have felt in late spring, when the previous winter’s snow left the mining site still submerged. Nevertheless, his interests as an artist prevailed, and soon abundant foliage attracted his attention; “leaving Hawkin’s Bar for Green Springs, we sauntered along the trail under the beautiful post-oaks, just now in their greatest beauty, with leaves half-grown and pendant catkins.”21
Although Audubon was frustrated in his efforts to make oil paintings of the surrounding landscapes, his tour of the mining regions was rewarded by his success in making “nearly ninety careful sketches, and many hasty ones.”22 Similarly, he kept his sketchbook close at hand when returning from his trek, recording his brief stays in Sacramento and San Francisco in several sensitive drawings. Sacramento City (fig. 28) appears to be more a small village than a thriving supply center, with animals grazing in the foreground, an unhitched covered wagon resting at the left center, and only a few buildings in sight. A stack of boards partially obscures the lightly sketched masts of a boat, the only reference to the harbor. Although several figures stand about, they are relatively small and unobtrusive. The large trees, which are rendered in considerable detail, appear of greater interest to Audubon.
FIG. 27. John Woodhouse Audubon, Hawkin’s Bar, 1850. Pencil on paper, 10¼ × 13 in. Southwest Museum, Los Angeles, gift of Eva Scott Fenyes. 22.G.9786
FIG. 28. John Woodhouse Audubon, Sacramento City, 1850. Pencil on paper, 10¼ × 13 in. Southwest Museum, Los Angeles, gift of Eva Scott Fenyes. 22.G.978AA
FIG. 29. John Woodhouse Audubon, San Francisco, 1850. Pencil on paper, 10¼ × 13 in. Southwest Museum, Los Angeles, gift of Eva Scott Fenyes. 22.G.978V
In contrast, San Francisco (fig. 29), a view from Nob Hill showing Yerba Buena Cove and anchorage, drawn little more than a month later (30 May 1850), shows an array of buildings—both residences and commercial establishments—crowded against the waterfront. Although still endowed with a sense of calm, instilled by the motionless water and barren hills in the background, the numerous structures clustered around Long Wharf (which projects into the bay at the center) give compelling evidence of urban development.
Another pioneer artist best known as an illustrator is Francis Samuel Marryat, an Englishman who used part of his father’s bequest to finance his trip to California in 1850. Marryat had previously published an account of his travels in Borneo and the Indian Archipelago, and recorded this journey in his Mountains and Molehills, published in 1855. He kept a diary and made drawings for this purpose, many of which perished in the San Francisco fire of 22 June 1851, recorded by John Prendergast (see fig. 10). Marryat also witnessed several of the fires that broke out in San Francisco with some regularity, and just a few months after he arrived in California recorded one in a watercolor, San Francisco Fire of 17 September 1850 (fig. 30). At least the second such conflagration the artist witnessed; Marryat’s view shows the large buildings, many four stories tall, that now occupied San Francisco’s business district, and the readiness of the volunteer fire companies that had formed in response to the number of fires that had broken out. His watercolor is enlivened not only by the billowing clouds of smoke that rise from the distant buildings, but also by the depictions of onlookers and scattered piles of their belongings in the foreground.
Undaunted, the settlers rebuilt the city after each fire, and E. Godchaux’s gouache Vue de San Francisco en 1851 (fig. 31), recorded the following year, demonstrates their success. Indeed, in this view, San Francisco boasts four long wharves and a fair number of wooden structures. Here there are no indications of the campsites evident in earlier depictions, and human activity is limited. With his tender rendering of the trees and grasses in the foreground, it seems likely that this otherwise unknown artist was more interested in depicting the landscape. Scenes such as Audubon, Marryat, and Godchaux described are thus important in documenting the evolution of the early Gold Rush, and deepen our understanding of the experiences encountered by the artists and of events in California at the time.
FIG. 30. Francis Samuel Marryat, San Francisco Fire of 17 September 1850, 1850. Watercolor on paper, 9⅜ × 13½ in. Oakland Museum of California, Kahn Collection.
FIG. 31. E. Godchaux, Vue de San-Francisco en 1851, 1851. Gouache on paper, 10 × 16 in. Garzoli Gallery, San Rafael, Calif.
FIG. 32. William Smith Jewett, Captain Washington A. Bartlett, U.S.N., 1850. Oil on canvas, 22 × 18 in. California Historical Society, San Francisco.
