Drawings of Henry B. Brown, 1851-1852

This collection contains pencil drawings drawn in 1851 and 1852 by American artist, and later United States Consul to Bermuda, Henry B. Brown. The forty-two drawings are arranged according to their five general subjects: California Native Americans (7), California landscapes (24), Mexico (4), Central America (6), and Other (1). Although the exact Indian tribes in Brown's drawings are not known, it is believed that they are the Maidu, Nomlaki, Patwin, Wintun, and/or the Shasta Indians because those tribes lived in the areas in California where Brown was traveling. These drawings include portraits of Indians and scenes of daily life in Indian villages. Five of these drawings have been published in Drawn from Life: California Indians in Pen and Brush by Theodora Kroeber, Albert B. Elsasser, and Robert F. Heizer, and Personal Narrative of Explorations and Incidents in Texas, New Mexico, California, Sonora, and Chihuahua by John Russell Bartlett. The twenty-four drawings of California landscapes include views of mining camps, a quartz mill, San Francisco, Marysville, Mount Shasta, Grass Valley, the Sacramento River, and Nevada City. The ten drawings of Mexico and Central America include views of Acapulco, the Gulf of California, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Also included in the collection is an undated drawing of the Susquehanna river in Port Deposit, Maryland, and a blank sheet of paper that was probably used as a mount for one of the drawings. The titles used are the titles supplied by the artist. Several of the drawings have sketches or inscriptions on the verso. A number of the Brown drawings have also been published in An Artist's Portfolio: the California Sketches of Henry B. Brown by Thomas C. Blackburn.