2001
Including an Original Drawing of Sutter's Mill -A by a Recorded Artist of the Gold Rush and Pioneer
Currency:USD
Category:Collectibles
Start Price:2,500.00 USD
Estimated At:5,000.00 - 8,000.00 USD
NOT SOLD (BIDDING OVER)
0.00USD+ applicable fees & taxes.
This item WAS NOT SOLD. Auction date was 2016 Jan 05 @ 20:00UTC-5 : EST/CDT
Significant suite of five original, antebellum drawings (four signed), by John Henry Dunnell, one of the Forty-Niners, adventurer, California's first Justice of the Peace upon Statehood - in Coloma, El Dorado County (which rose around Sutter's Mill), and a trained fine artist.Having studied at the National Academy of Design, upon discovery of gold, in early 1849 Dunnell took the first steamer of the Pacific Line from New York. As Coloma's Justice, it was Dunnell who heard a lawsuit against two men who had bought out Sutter: James Marshall, who had discovered the gold at Sutter's Mill, and his partner John Winters. Despite Dunnell's successful "Dunnell & Nickols' New York Store" in Coloma, he returned East at the close of 1850. In June 1857 he revisited Gold Country as an agent for Singer sewing machines, still drawing and painting; the Sept. 1857 Report of the First Industrial Exhibition of the Mechanics' Institute of San Francisco, records, "Before leaving the oil paintings, the judges desire to notice several admirable productions of artists not residents of this state...," citing Dunnell's work, a landscape of the Catskills, "the other an original composition worthy of study." Early in the Civil War, Dunnell again returned to Gotham, volunteering as a 90-day Private in the 7th N.Y. Infantry. A member of the American Artist's Union and intimate friend of noted landscape artist George Innes, Dunnell's landscapes were exhibited in the National Academy of Design, and sold there during several exhibitions. A founder of Rutherford, N.J., and later living in Brooklyn, Dunnell was a member of American Artist's Union and Sons of the American Revolution. Comprising:
* Dreamy stream meandering through mountain canyon, wooden buildings with mill wheel perched at shore, c. 1849-50, pencil on cream, 6 1/4 x 7 1/2, initialed "J.H.D.," no place marked but believed Sutter's Mill, on American Fork of the Sacramento River, based upon comparison with similar river landscapes identified as Sutter's Mill, in the University of California-Berkeley's celebrated Honeyman Collection of Western American Pictorial Material, including the Gold Rush era. The only located signed artwork of Sutter's Mill by Dunnell (albeit with initials); the Honeyman Collection includes one Dunnell, evidently unsigned, from a different perspective. Judged drawn earlier in the Gold Rush than the Honeyman's three other original views of Sutter's Mill by various artists (one of whom was only four years old in 1849): the present Dunnell sketch shows the bank of the river with its flat rocky rise facing the mill; artwork by an unidentified, undated artist in Honeyman shows a modest wood-frame structure atop that bluff. Top edge indicates once in Dunnell's sketch book, some toning on verso, else fine.
* Sketch evidently done while in California, c. 1858, of Dr. J.F.G. Mittag of (Lancasterville), S.C., 5 1/2 x 5 3/4, pencil, unsigned. As Gen. Sherman neared Mittag's town, word spread that he planned to burn it. Hearing this, Mittag collected a group of letters that had been written to him by the popular N.Y. doctor John W. Francis. When Mittag showed these letters to Sherman's dreaded Gen. "Kill Cavalry" Kilpatrick, the general was so taken by them that he ordered the town be spared. Uniform light toning, else fine.
* Signed and titled in his hand, "From Weehawken Hill, Hoboken 'N.J.], June 1847 / John Henry Dunnell," 7 x 10. Pencil, with foliage accented with golden brown wash. Contemporary with his 1847-48 exhibition at National Academy of Design. Minor stain left margin, else very good.
* Signed and titled in his hand, "Catskill Mtn. House," (and on verso, "...June 28, 1844, J.H. Dunnell"), 5 3/4 x 7 3/4. Evocative sepia wash. Minor handling evidence, else fine.
* Initialed sketch, titled on verso, "Tannery in the Clove, Catskill Mtn.," c. 1840s, 6 3/4 x 10. Pencil, on light grey sheet. Charmingly detailed. Minor edge wear, small marginal stains and toning, else good.
Mentioned in Artists of the Gold Rush (Oakland Museum of California), Artists in California, 1786-1940 (Hughes), Days of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the American Nation (Rohrbough), and The First Hundred Years of Painting in California, 1775-1875 (Van Nostrand, 1980; very fine copy accompanies lot), Dunnell's work is rare on the market: "...But it was the obscure amateurs whose names are not to be found in the scanty art annals of the period who produced the major portion of the extant Gold Rush images: John Hovey, Daniel W. Nason, John Henry Dunnell..."--Van Nostrand. The 1956 exhibition catalogue of the Oakland Art Museum contains several of Dunnell's paintings. Neither the Library of Congress online database, WorldCat, nor abebooks contain anything by Dunnell; the Smithsonian locates several of his works, most or all of which are at Berkeley. Dunnell's artwork is distinguished for having been drawn by one of the most important characters of Coloma, birthplace of the Gold Rush. Both through his general store and position as Justice of the Peace in the lawless epicenter of Gold Rush fever, Dunnell undoubtedly encountered Marshall and Sutter, as well as the desperadoes, bandits, posses, and fortune-seekers converging on the area depicted in his drawing. A superb find, collected by a N.Y. art dealer in the 1930s, believed unpublished and unrecorded, reflecting one of the most storied chapters in American history. (5 drawings + book)
Auction Location:
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Buyer's Premiums:
| From (Incl.) | To (Excl.) | Premium |
| 0.00 |
10,000.00 |
20.5% |
| 10,000.00 |
18,000.00 |
18% |
| 18,000.00 |
Infinite |
16% |
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