San Francisco
Charles Meryon
1855–56 · Etching on steel; third state of three · Drawings and Prints
Meryon traveled widely during his early career in the French navy, though he never visited San Francisco, the subject of this panoramic view. He received the commission for this unusually large plate from two real estate speculators, whose profiles appear above the inscription, and who seem to have intended to use the print to sell shares in a fraudulent Franco-Californian company. The artist based the image on five daguerreotypes (now in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago) and complained about the difficulty of synthesizing the photographs, which had been taken from different positions and under varying lighting conditions.
- Artist
- Charles Meryon
- Date
- 1855–56
- Medium
- Etching on steel; third state of three
- Department
- Drawings and Prints
- Credit line
- Rogers Fund, 1917
