Beschreibung:

(California Gold Rush) Letter to artist William Thompson Russell Smith Author: McIlvaine, Jr., William H. Place Published: Hanover, New Hampshire Date Published: Aug. 28, 1848 Description: Autograph Letter Signed (in pencil). 3 pp.+stampless address leaf. To [William Thompson] Russell Smith. Milestown near Philadelphia, Penn. Clearly strapped for cash, McIlvaine writes his friend about a sketching trip they contemplated taking together to Franconia Notch in the “very beautiful” White Mountains of New Hampshire – provided that Smith could provide “a statement of moderate expense” apparently subject to approval by McIlvaine’s uncle, a prominent Philadelphia physician. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania and studying art in Europe, McIlvaine had begun exhibiting paintings of European landscapes. He thus became friends with Scottish-born Russell Smith, just a year older, but already well-established as a painter of panoramic landscapes and theatrical scenes. They presumably did travel together – there are paintings and sketches by both men dated from that fall when the world was thrilled by the announcement of gold discovered in California – but just eight months after writing this letter, in 1849, McIlvaine sailed "around the horn" to San Francisco. Arriving on June 1, he went directly to the gold fields, where, as historian Robert Cleland later remarked, he “devoted more time to his sketch book than to the 'pick, pan, or shovel'". After five months in California, McIlvaine began the trip home, traveling overland across Mexico, then sailing back to Philadelphia, where, in early 1850, he published “Sketches of Scenery And Notes of Personal Adventure in California and Mexico”, a book of only 44 pages, featuring 16 full-page lithographic plates from his original drawings. He then recruited Russell Smith to paint a “grand-scale panorama” based on his sketches, which was displayed in Philadelphia and Baltimore – one of many California panoramas on public view, but possibly the first based on the work of an artist who, as a Forty-Niner, had seen the gold country firsthand. While Smith continued to gain artistic renown for watercolors he painted at his Pennsylvania country studio, the work of McIlvaine, who continued to paint watercolors throughout the Civil War, was all but forgotten until his rare Gold Rush sketch book was reproduced in a 1951 by the Grabhorn Press as one of only a dozen Gold Rush "narratives of personal experience” published “while the Gold Rush was still in progress", Moreover, it was the only one to feature art rather than prose. McIlvaine may thus be considered the first published American artist of the California Gold Rush, and this letter to Smith, who brought his work to the attention of the Eastern public, makes this a choice historical association. Condition: Address leaf soiled, seal opening affecting only a few words of handwriting; very good. Item#: 347092 Headline: Letter from published artist of the California Gold Rush