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Author: Van Houten, Margaret
Title: Original watercolor of a party crossing the Isthmus of Panama by mule train
Place Published: San Francisco
Publisher:
Date Published: c.1855
Description:

Watercolor on paper, which is laid down on later backing board. Signed "M. Van Houten" calligraphically in lower right margin. Image is 24x39.2 cm (9½x15½") plus margins.

Marvelous view of a party with guides and mules making the arduous trek across the Isthmus of Panama. A typed note, which was on the back of an earlier frame, describes it: "In 1855 Margaret Van Houten painted this picture of her family crossing the Isthmus of Panama in 1852." Edan Hughes, in "Artists in California," gives the date of the crossing as 1855, but does note that Van Houten exhibited at the Mechanics' Institute in San Francisco in 1857. Besides being a skilled and captivating depiction of the crossing by an accomplished artist, in bright, vivid watercolor, the painting is the work of a woman who was, undoubtedly, one of the early female artists working in California.

Some light foxing most visible in the sky portion, streak in upper right perhaps meant to represent a flock of birds; tape stains at left and right margins, that at right intruding slightly into image, small marginal chip at lower right edge; very good.