Ten Photographs of Original Artwork for the Gold Rush Narrative From East Prussia to the Golden Gate
Ten original photographs, 6.25 x 9 inches, of pencil sketches made by Frank Lecouvreur documenting his journey to California around Cape Horn and his experiences mining for gold in the early 1850s. The same sketches are reproduced as some of the plates in Lecouvreur’s book From East Prussia to the Golden Gate (Angelina Book Concern, 1906); however, the images in the book are slightly cropped versions of those in this lot. Our best guess, therefore, is that our photographs were supplied to the publisher for purposes of making the plates (essentially camera-ready copy). The California images here include two river scenes, a mountain pass and valley, and a miner’s cabin near Nelson Creek (Plumas Country). There are two drawings of the Bark Victoria (one in heavy seas as it rounds the Horn) and several scenes from Chile showing a town and fort. Each photo is mounted on an 8 x 10.5-inch board with handwritten captions in German (in pencil) and English (in ink), in two different hands). Light edgewear to mounts, else fine.
Item #20559
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