Ernest Étienne Narjot (December 25, 1826 – August 24, 1898) was an American artist of the 19th century. He produced many

paintings Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

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 ...

landscape, in particular of life in the Gold Country.

Life

Ernest Étienne Narjot was born in on December 25, 1826, in

Saint-Malo Saint-Malo (, , ; Gallo: ; ) is a historic French port in Ille-et-Vilaine, Brittany, on the English Channel coast. The walled city had a long history of piracy, earning much wealth from local extortion and overseas adventures. In 1944, the Alli ...

, France. He was brought up in Paris and studied art there before coming to California in 1849 to join the

California Gold Rush The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California fro ...

. He spent three unproductive years in the Gold Country, panning for gold at Fosters Bar on the Yuba River. In 1851, he joined a French mining expedition to

Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Sonora), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is d ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

. The expedition was not a success, but Narjot remained in Sonora where he bought a ranch and married a local woman, Santos Ortiz. He continued mining, painting and breeding horses in the area but eventually returned to

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 ...

with his family in 1865 and set up a studio at 610 Clay Street. By the 1880s, he had established himself as one of California's foremost painters. In the early 1890s, Narjot was commissioned to paint the ceiling at Leland Stanford, Jr.'s

tomb A tomb ( grc-gre, τύμβος ''tumbos'') is a :wikt:repository, repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes. Placing a corpse into a tomb can be ...

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

and, while working there, paint splashed in his eyes. As a result, Narjot was blinded in one eye and his health began to deteriorate. By 1897, his economic circumstances had declined to a point that he was forced to move to a tenement. In response, thirty prominent California artists, among them Thomas Hill,

Amédée Joullin Amédée Joullin (3 June 1862, in San Francisco – 3 February 1917, in San Francisco) was a French American painter whose work centered on the landscapes of California and on Native Americans. Biography He was born in San Francisco to French ...

, William Keith and Arthur Mathews, came to his aid with a benefit sale of their work. He died in San Francisco on August 24, 1898.

Work

Although his work included landscapes, portraits, church murals and frescos, as well as book illustrations, Narjot is best known for his art depicting experiences and recollections of his life as a forty-niner, such as his 1882 work, Miners: A Moment at Rest (Autry Museum of Western Heritage, Los Angeles). Only one surviving work of Narjot's was actually executed while he was at the Mother Lode. Many others were executed years later and bear a certain sense of nostalgia. Narjot's paintings and drawings are held mostly in California institutions, including the

California Historical Society The California Historical Society (CHS) is the official historical society of California. It was founded in 1871, by a group of prominent Californian intellectuals at Santa Clara University. It was officially designated as the Californian state hi ...

; Oakland Museum of California;

Museum of the American West The Autry Museum of the American West is a museum in Los Angeles, California, dedicated to exploring an inclusive history of the American West. Founded in 1988, the museum presents a wide range of exhibitions and public programs, including l ...

;

California State Library The California State Library is the state library of the State of California, founded in 1850 by the California State Legislature. The Library collects, preserves, generates and disseminates a wide array of information. Today, it is the central ...

; Santa Barbara Museum of Art; Bancroft Library (University of California at Berkeley); Crocker Art Museum, (Sacramento, CA); Silverado Museum (St Helena, CA); De Young Museum; Los Angeles Athletic Club;

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California, Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Pa ...

. Many of his paintings were destroyed in the

1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire At 05:12 Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated Moment magnitude scale, moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity scale, Mercalli ...

Works

* 1888
''Bathing at Glen Ellen''
oil on canvas, Shasta State Historic Park, Shasta County, California

References

. An online facsimile of the entire text of Vol. 1 is posted on the Traditional Fine Arts Organization website. Ernest Etienne Narjot (1826–1898) by Claudine Chalmers California History, Vol. 78, No. 3 (Fall, 1999), p. 146 Published by: California Historical Societ

{{DEFAULTSORT:Narjot, Ernest Etienne 19th-century American painters 19th-century American male artists American male painters Painters from California 1826 births 1898 deaths People of the California Gold Rush