Edward Vischer (1809–1878) was a German-born painter and photographer who migrated from Germany to Mexico at the age of nineteen. He is best known for his pencil sketches of

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

landscapes throughout the 1860s and 1870s.

Career

In Mexico, he worked with the commercial house of Heinrich Virmond, traveling throughout the

Pacific Coast Pacific coast may be used to reference any coastline that borders the Pacific Ocean. Geography Americas Countries on the western side of the Americas have a Pacific coast as their western or southwestern border, except for Panama, where the Pac ...

region of the Americas. In 1835, he visited Peru on business, where he lived with artist Mauritius Rugendas and met

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...

. In 1842, he became interested in California and agreed to travel there for Virmond. Vischer is best known for his pencil sketches of California landscapes throughout the 1860s and 1870s. He sketched a wide variety of scenes and objects, but most commonly the

California missions The Spanish missions in California ( es, Misiones españolas en California) comprise a series of 21 religious outposts or missions established between 1769 and 1833 in what is now the U.S. state of California. Founded by Catholic priests of ...

, trees, mountains, and rural scenes. His 1870 publication ''Pictorial of California'' gathered together nearly 200 drawings, forming the first comprehensive documentation of California scenery. He followed this in 1872 with an album of drawings of California missions; another volume of mission drawings was published in 1878, the year of his death.

Death

Edward Vischer died on December 24, 1878, in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, California.

Published works

A partial list of Vischer's works include: * ''Sketches of the Washoe Mining Region'' (1862). * ''Views of California: The Mammoth Tree Grove, Calaveras County, California, and Its Avenues'' (1862). * ''Pictorial of California'' (1870) * ''The Mission Era: California Under Spain and Mexico'' (1872) * ''Drawings of the California Missions'' (1878)

Gallery

File:El Jolon.jpg, El Jolon, Monterey County File:Vischer Rancho de Santa Ana.jpg, Rancho de Santa Ana by Edward Vischer File:Mission San Antonio de Padua as drawn by Edward Vischer, June 26, 1873.jpg, Mission San Antonio de Padua as drawn

External links

Edward Vischer Drawings, Photographs and Other Material
in the Claremont Colleges Digital Library
The Mission Era: California Under Spain and Mexico and Reminiscences (ca. 1850-1878), online pictorial collection

The Bancroft Library The Bancroft Library in the center of the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, is the university's primary special-collections library. It was acquired from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1905, with the proviso that it retai ...

Edward Vischer
website

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vischer, Edward 1809 births 1878 deaths 19th-century American illustrators Spanish missions in California Immigrants to Mexico