Santa Margarita Rancho

ClassificationsDrawings

Artist Alexander Harmer (1856-1925; toured in early 1880's)

Date1880

MediumPastel on paper

DimensionsOverall: 13 x 11 in. (33 x 27.9 cm)

Credit LineGift of Ysidora Melitas Forster

Object number7533

DescriptionPastel painting of Santa Margarita Rancho (and pencilled note - "& Las Flores Adobe") with Don Juan Marco Forster in left foreground. Nearly one half of painting missing. Done by the well-known artist Alexander Harmer, who toured California in early '80s. The approx. size would have been 11" x 13".

This work illustrates a small part of the adobe at one time owned by Pio Pico and enlarged by Forster, who acquired the property in 1864. The rancho was sold in 1882 to Richard O'Niell and James L. Flood, the same year in which Juan Forster's will was probated.

Harmer has been called "The first great painter in Southern California and almost the only one of repute in the nineteenth century."

Gift of Maria Ygnacia Melitas Forster, a daughter of Juan's oldest son Marco Antonio. Maria was baptized at the Mission of San Juan Capistrano in 1864.

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