A vision for the West: Judge crocker's art gallery and California paintings collection - Edwin Bryant Crocker

Magazine Antiques, Nov, 2000 by Janice Driesbach

Installed across from Sunday Morning in the Mines, and undoubtedly conceived as a companion to it, is Nahl's Fandango (Pl. XI), also commissioned by Crocker. Depicting Spanish California, it has been described as "appearing to be more unified in spirit, suggesting oneness and a camaraderie" [27] not evident in Sunday Morning in the Mines. But, while the composition is organized around the dancing figures at its center, the couple racing off on horseback to the right and the unexplained scuffle taking place on the porch (both motifs with parallels in Sunday Morning in the Mines) create competing centers of interest. Nahl's use of figure types from his sketchbooks, such as the bearded man seated at the lower right, and the discordant scale of the figures are likewise disconcerting. The Fandango earned only qualified praise when it was exhibited in San Francisco, with one critic commenting, "While we cannot defend the crude, and to some extent vicious coloring thereof, we do unmistakenly aver that it is a grand work, and that in drawing, conception, and execution there are few artists in the whole country that could touch it." [28]

In much the same way as Crocker had sought to assemble an encyclopedic selection of European paintings on his sojourn abroad, so he appears to have aspired to a comprehensive representation in his California collection. He commissioned more than twenty portraits of notable Californians from Stephen William Shaw, most of which were completed from sittings or photographs in 1873, and he purchased a single, very fine, marine painting, Towing the "Old Veteran," by Gideon Jacques Denny (Pl. XII).

A native of Delaware, who worked as a teamster when he first traveled to San Francisco during the gold rush, Denny later returned to the city and established himself as a specialist in views of ships on San Francisco Bay and along California's coast. Although Towing the "Old Veteran" might appear to depict a specific incident, the dramatic marine scene may in fact be an allegory of the ascendancy of steam-powered ships over antiquated sailing vessels. Described by a contemporary reviewer as "this worthy artist's best and quite a masterpiece of its school," [29] the composition is incongruous in many respects. Either a square-rigged ship or a three-masted bark, the "Old Veteran" has gunports rendered useless by chain plates, making it unclear if it is a military or a mercantile vessel. The cropped hull is characteristic of British ships, while the elaborate decorations on the stern are more closely associated with Dutch and Spanish construction. The rigging and sails of the paddle steamer towing the disabled ship are also more characteristic of the period between 1820 and 1850, when the reliability of steam engines remained unproven. [30]

If Crocker selected a characteristic example by California's most highly regarded marine painter in Denny's work, he chose a somewhat unusual early painting by the region's preeminent still-life specialist. Although Samuel Marsden Brookes painted Still Life (The Larder) (Pl. XIII) in 1862, it was not acquired by Crocker until 1873, when he paid three hundred dollars for it. [31] By then Brookes was at the height of his powers, producing exquisite canvases of single clusters of grapes and apples and remarkable "portraits" of strung salmon and trout. [32] However, Crocker chose a more complex early composition painted shortly after Brookes had started working in this genre. Largely self-taught, the British-born artist practiced as an itinerant portrait painter in Wisconsin and Illinois before emigrating to California by way of New York in the spring of 1862. As opposed to his later still lifes, Still Life (The Larder) reflects the strong influence of seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish painting in both the v ariety of game and produce depicted and the contrasting colors and textures. A remarkable demonstration of Brookes's abilities with his newfound specialty, the composition attests to California's abundance, depicting young capon, rooster, wild turkey, squabs, mallard duck, woodcock, and thrush, along with a cornucopia of vegetables. In addition, the artist's prominent acknowledgment of his new residence in the four quail (California's state bird) in the center foreground may have offered additional appeal to a patron active in politics.