PBA Galleries

This is the first printing of this striking lithograph, with Lapham & Haynes listed as proprietors; the later (c.1857) printing lists A. Smith Hayes as sole proprietor. Arriving in California on August 8, 1849, Ayres mined for a while, then traveled through the state painting & drawing. Peters notes that his drawings, "made on the spot, have artistic merit and place Ayres in the front rank of the draftsmen of the period." He traveled with J.M. Hutchings to Yosemite in 1855, and produced the first pictorial representations of the Yosemite. The present lithograph depicts the small hotel at the grove and a number of big trees, several of which have been recently toppled. Currey & Kruska 4; Peters, California on Stone, Plate 55.