Page:The Overland Monthly, volume 1, issue 1.djvu/22

 as to try their luck in the diggings, made hasty sketches of men and scenery to illustrate their notes; but there was no local demand for the product of pencil or burin, and nobody tried to create one. The great work of the times was to found a State and build a city. Even the first introduction of fine pictures had a purely commercial motive. With few exceptions they were not brought to adorn homes or public halls, but to lend another attraction to the vicious "saloons" wherein fortunes were won or lost on the turn of a card or the toss of a die. In the winter of 1850 S. J. Gower, who had an auction room or Montgomery Street near California, exhibited and sold at low prices the first collection of paintings ever brought to the State, comprising thirty or forty old European pictures of merit, the best of which were burnt in the great fire of 1851. Many inferior pictures were sent here about the same time, but fortunately perished in the flames that twice consumed the city. J. C. Duncan was one of the earliest to introduce and encourage Art in a liberal and critical spirit. In 1851 he bought from the shippers a splendid Diana starting for the Chase, painted by Maes, in Holland, a hundred years ago. In 1852 he bought the celebrated Taking of Samson by the Philistines, from the masterly hand of Jacobs, of Dresden, which is still retained and well known in this city. He was subsequently the owner of a number of first class European paintings of the modern school, and at one time owned the largest private collection in this city. Among these was a fine Prometheus, ascribed to Andrea del Sarto. In 1854 he brought from Europe about four hundred paintings, mostly of the Flemish school, among them nearly one hundred fine originals, bought directly from the studios of artists, some of whom, like Calame and Verbeckhoven, have since become widely celebrated.

These pictures sold at a great loss. A Verbeeckhoven that cost $500 brought only $68. It is now worth thousands. There were no more good collections imported for sale until 1863, when Mr. Duncan had originals by members of the Peale family, by May, and by several New York painters of repute. But during this interval wealth and taste were increasing, society was becoming fixed, and many gentlemen imported paintings of decided merit. Many artists also, of more or less merit, who came here to dig gold remained to paint. Mining was a lottery and a hardship from which they soon turned in disgust, and there was much to encourage the hope of better success in their profession. Our cosmopolitan community has always embraced an unusually large proportion of intelligent persons of refined taste. Few of these however, at that early day, were inclined to accumulate art objects, as few of them expected to remain and build homes here. There was much in our scenery, in the picturesque mixture of races, and in the wild and exciting incidents of pioneer life, to suggest themes for the painter; but he was mainly obliged to rely upon portraiture and such hack work as the miscellaneous wants of trade and journalism demanded. There was no collection for public exhibition of the good pictures that gradually accumulated until many years had passed, and there were no art agencies to supply the place of galleries to the populace.

The few artists who had the courage to remain and practice here during this period deserve particular mention. The first of these, in point of time, according to our best information, was W. S. Jewett, who, early in 1850, painted a large oil picture which properly ought to begin the record of California art production. It is a landscape view from the summit of the Sierra Nevada, and represents an emigrant family who have just emerged from the wilderness and are