Carleton Watkins A Delicate Balance
The words Vance used to describe the California daguerreotypes provide clues to help unravel the story of their creation. Ironically, we must rely on words not pictures as evidence because very few surviving Gold Rush era daguerreotypes can be securely matched to the catalog descriptions. Nevertheless, the language and phrasing of the catalog descriptions are a window to important choices made by the photographer about where to position the camera and the ideas driving the images. In the absence of pictures, Vance’s “Catalog” records in words the photographer’s approach to the motifs.
When Vance’s “Catalog” is analyzed in reverse numerical order we can propose a possible itinerary for the first few weeks of work that would start at Sutter’s Fort in late September of 1850 (R.V. 129-126), proceed to Sacramento (R.V. 125-120), then on to Marysville and vicinity (R.V. 118-101). At some point in time after no less than two weeks and more like a month, we see a return to Sacramento (R.V. 96-94), continuing on to San Francisco via Benicia (R. V. 93).
We must imagine that R.V. 129 represents what would have been item number one of a series of daguerreotypes intended to convey visually the experience of a gold-seeker freshly arrived in California. The two dozen items following it in descending order from R.V. 129 to R.V. 94 (with the exception of R.V. 109-103) represent a visual survey of the key locations—the towns of Sacramento, Marysville, as well as the larger-than-life personality of John Sutter.
Based on the surviving written narratives a typical fortune hunter would arrive in San Francisco after a journey of six weeks to six months from the U. S. East Coast.[15] Without wasting time most newcomers would continue by steamer to the landing established by Sutter at what became the foot of J Street in Sacramento.[16] It would be natural to begin the visual story of the Gold Rush in California with a Portrait of Sutter, whose name was known to every gold seeker. His name was not just on the landing, but also on the main supply depot, the Fort, and on the lumber mill fifty miles distant where gold was discovered by James Marshall in January, 1848.
Among the notable facts recorded in the Vance “Catalog” is the ease of access the photographer had to John Sutter and his family. In addition to the Portrait of Sutter (R.V. 129) catalogued in the context of Sutter’s Fort, there is a second image that describes Sutter posed with his daughter and son-in-law in front of Sutter’s actual residence at Hock Farm on the Feather