Description
This collection contains forty-two pencil drawings primarily of California Native Americans,
California landscapes, Mexico, and
Central America, drawn in 1851 and 1852 by American artist, and later United States Consul to Bermuda, Henry B. Brown.
Background
Henry B. Brown was probably born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in January 1816. In the 1840s, he worked as a portrait artist
and engraver, and in 1851 he traveled to San Francisco with his
friend Jacob Bailey Moore. Brown worked for Moore for the next several months, gathering specimens and making drawings
in the California countryside. In March of 1852, he was commissioned
by John Russell Bartlett, head of the U.S.-Mexico Boundary Commission and a friend of Moore, to draw views of landscapes
and Indians in Northern California, assist with collecting Indian
vocabularies, and make maps of the area, with a view towards contributing to Bartlett's book "Personal Narrative of Explorations
and Incidents in Texas, New Mexico, California, Sonora, and
Chihuahua" (1854). Brown traveled to New York in the late summer of 1852, and presumably drew his coastal scenes of Mexico
and
Central
America during the trip. From 1856 to 1859, he served
as US Consul for Bermuda. Little is known of his life after that date; his health was poor at the time of his resignation
in 1859, and he may have died in late 1860 or soon after. He should
not be confused with the Maine artist Harrison Bird Brown (1831-1915) or with the escaped slave Henry "Box" Brown (b. 1816).
Extent
43 items in 3 boxes
Restrictions
The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from or publish images of this material,
nor does it charge fees for such activities.
The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and obtaining necessary permissions rests with
the researcher.
Availability
The entire collection is open for qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services
Department. For more information, please go to following web site.