[SMYTH, William (1800-1877).] "Mission of San Francisco, Upper California," watercolor drawing, captioned as above in lower right, circa November 1826.

228 x 355mm on 260 x 387mm sheet, laid paper watermarked "J Ruse 1803". (A trifle toned and a couple of light spots in sky, hinged to mat.) Matted.

An historically important early depiction of Mission San Francisco de Asís (Mission Dolores), painted during the winter of 1826-1827. The drawing was accomplished by William Smyth, admiralty mate and artist on Captain Frederick William Beechey’s North Pacific expedition aboard the Blossom. The Blossom sailed through the Golden Gate on 6 November 1826 and spent several weeks undertaking a survey of the San Francisco Bay. It is one of at least eight views of northern California executed by Smyth on this expedition. Only one was included in Beechey’s Narrative of a Voyage, but the remainder were published in Alexander Forbes’s history of California just a decade following. These drawings were apparently sold in London in the early 20th century; two are in the Bancroft Library, and one in the Peabody Museum.

The view depicts the Mission chapel as it still stands today, looking west with the Twin Peaks rising in the background. The population of San Francisco was only about 260 people in 1826. A single road leads up to the Mission, which is itself surrounded by pasture land and about a dozen red-tiled out-buildings and dwellings. "William Smyth's art reflects a preoccupation with exact reproduction of the prospect before him" (First Hundred Years, p.10).

Donald Angus, 1908-2001, Honolulu, Hawaii
sold by John Howell Books in 1982, to
Eldon Grupp, d.2021, San Francisco, California

FORBES, Alexander. California: A History of Upper and Lower California from their First Discovery to the Present Time. London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1839. Lithograph, plate 9.

The above book reprinted in 1919.

VAN NOSTRAND, Jeanne and Edith M. COULTER. California Pictorial: A History in Contemporary Pictures, 1786-1859. University of California Press, 1948. Plate 11 (after Forbes’s lithograph, stating “the location of the original water color [is] unknown, although a search has been made for it”).

VAN NOSTRAND, Jeanne. San Francisco, 1806-1906: in Comtemporary Paintings, Drawings, and Watercolors. San Francisco: Book Club of California, 1975. Color illustration, pl. 4.

—. The First Hundred Years of Painting in California, 1775-1875. San Francisco: John Howell, 1980. Color illustration, pl. 8 (identifying it as in the collection of Donald Angus).