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Lot Essay
ONE OF THE EARLIEST VIEWS OF THE SITE OF SAN FRANCISCO, TAKEN BY A CANTONESE ARTIST c.1846
'This is apparently the only Chinese 'export' view of San Francisco on record. There is some contemporary evidence of the existence of such views: in 1849 the cargo of the Rhone was advertised for sale in San Francisco, and together with Chinese porcelain, lacquer and silk were listed "... Paintings and Engravings framed, consisting of views of San Francisco and its vicinity." But it seems no other such view has been recorded in recent times.' (Martyn Gregory, cat.66, p.47).
The Viceroyalty of New Spain had first visited and claimed the San Francisco Bay area in 1769 and the Spanish built a mission and military fort, the Presidio of San Francisco, in 1776. Yerba Buena, which lay in between the mission and fort, was set up as a trading post for ships visiting San Francisco Bay. Its first mention as a place name came in George Vancouver's Discovery log in 1792, when he sailed into San Francisco Bay and anchored 'about a league below the Presidio in a place they called Yerba Buena.'
The present view looks to date to c.1846, the trading post shown just before the Gold Rush decade which began in 1848. There is no sign of the flagstaff, perhaps indicative of a date before 9 July 1846 when Captain John Berrien Montgomery and US Marine Second Lieutenant Henry Bullls Watson of USS Portsmouth raised a flag on the town plaza to claim Yerba Buena for America during the Spanish-American War. Yerba Buena's tiny population doubled at the end of the same month when 240 Mormon pioneers arrived. The town changed its name to San Francisco by the proclamation of the alcalde Washington Allon Bartlett on 30 January 1847.
With the coming of the Gold Rush in 1848 its population rocketed, rising from 1,000 to 25,000 between January 1848 and December 1849, and early drawings and prints show that a sizeable city, unrecognisable from this Chinese view, had sprung up by 1849 (for which see G.G. Deák, Picturing America, 1497-1899, Princeton, 1988, pp.581-85). For the earlier views of San Francisco from the same period as the present view, see J.C. Ward's sketch lithographed by Sarony & Mayor, 'San Francisco in November 1848, not long after being renamed from Yerba Buena, looking to the north-east over Yerba Buena Cove toward Yerba Buena Island.' which looks in the same direction but includes not so many buildings as the present view, and just four ships in the bay. For a view taken in the opposite direction, which has a key to the early streets and buildings shown, see the chromolithograph made up from Captain Swaysey's sketches ('View of San Francisco, formerly Yerba Buena, 1846-7 before the discovery of gold. ... ') issued in 1884 (G.G. Deák, Ibid, 553).
'This is apparently the only Chinese 'export' view of San Francisco on record. There is some contemporary evidence of the existence of such views: in 1849 the cargo of the Rhone was advertised for sale in San Francisco, and together with Chinese porcelain, lacquer and silk were listed "... Paintings and Engravings framed, consisting of views of San Francisco and its vicinity." But it seems no other such view has been recorded in recent times.' (Martyn Gregory, cat.66, p.47).
The Viceroyalty of New Spain had first visited and claimed the San Francisco Bay area in 1769 and the Spanish built a mission and military fort, the Presidio of San Francisco, in 1776. Yerba Buena, which lay in between the mission and fort, was set up as a trading post for ships visiting San Francisco Bay. Its first mention as a place name came in George Vancouver's Discovery log in 1792, when he sailed into San Francisco Bay and anchored 'about a league below the Presidio in a place they called Yerba Buena.'
The present view looks to date to c.1846, the trading post shown just before the Gold Rush decade which began in 1848. There is no sign of the flagstaff, perhaps indicative of a date before 9 July 1846 when Captain John Berrien Montgomery and US Marine Second Lieutenant Henry Bullls Watson of USS Portsmouth raised a flag on the town plaza to claim Yerba Buena for America during the Spanish-American War. Yerba Buena's tiny population doubled at the end of the same month when 240 Mormon pioneers arrived. The town changed its name to San Francisco by the proclamation of the alcalde Washington Allon Bartlett on 30 January 1847.
With the coming of the Gold Rush in 1848 its population rocketed, rising from 1,000 to 25,000 between January 1848 and December 1849, and early drawings and prints show that a sizeable city, unrecognisable from this Chinese view, had sprung up by 1849 (for which see G.G. Deák, Picturing America, 1497-1899, Princeton, 1988, pp.581-85). For the earlier views of San Francisco from the same period as the present view, see J.C. Ward's sketch lithographed by Sarony & Mayor, 'San Francisco in November 1848, not long after being renamed from Yerba Buena, looking to the north-east over Yerba Buena Cove toward Yerba Buena Island.' which looks in the same direction but includes not so many buildings as the present view, and just four ships in the bay. For a view taken in the opposite direction, which has a key to the early streets and buildings shown, see the chromolithograph made up from Captain Swaysey's sketches ('View of San Francisco, formerly Yerba Buena, 1846-7 before the discovery of gold. ... ') issued in 1884 (G.G. Deák, Ibid, 553).