,
Sunday Morning in the Mines (1872)
Californian art and American art The Californian art collection includes works dating from statehood to the present. The core collection of early Californian art was assembled by Judge E. B. and Margaret Crocker in the early 1870s. Prominent in their collection are works by the German-American artist
Charles Christian Nahl, who brought the large scale and copious detail of European
history painting to works depicting the
California Gold Rush. The Crockers commissioned five major works from Nahl, including
Sunday Morning in the Mines (1872). 's
Allegory of Painting (1648)
European art Original collection The collection of European art began with the Crocker family's trip to Europe, from 1869 to 1871. It was not a
Grand Tour. The Crockers rented lodgings in Dresden for over a year, and traveled mostly in Germany. (Works said to be by
Rembrandt,
Rubens,
Poussin,
Salvator Rosa, and even
Leonardo da Vinci appear in the initial 1876 catalogue, but were reattributed in following decades.) However, among Crocker's purchases were a number of genuinely rare works by a broader array of artists than he realized, and for a brief time the Crockers possessed the largest private art collection in the United States. Along with paintings, the Crockers also acquired 1344 Old Master drawings "and untold numbers of prints of rare craftsmanship." Of more certain provenance were the numerous German and Central European paintings Crocker purchased, many by artists who were alive and working at the time. These 19th-century paintings would form the core of the European collection, along with a number of 17th-century Flemish and
Dutch Golden Age still lifes and genre scenes, as well as French and Italian works of the 17th and 18th centuries.
Later acquisitions Beginning in the 21st century, gifts by philanthropist Alan Templeton have expanded the scope of the European collection to include works by Italian artists
Guercino,
il Morazzone,
Bernardo Strozzi, and
Rosalba Carriera, the Swedish portrait painter
Alexander Roslin, and French artists
Simon Vouet,
Philippe de Champaigne,
Jean-Baptiste Perronneau,
Charles Poërson,
Pierre-Alexandre Wille,
Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée, and
Robert Lefèvre, as well as English portraitist
Sir Thomas Lawrence, Austrian artists
Josef Danhauser and
Adolf Hirémy-Hirschl, German artist
Heinrich Vogeler, and the Dutch artists
Abraham Hondius and
Jan van Bijlert. Gifts and promised gifts by the Beekhuis family of 67 19th-century Dutch landscapes The Crocker's holdings of European art after 1900 are small, but include one of Northern California's most significant collections of works by
Renoir, in part due to gifts from the artist's grandson,
Alain Renoir, a professor at the
University of California, Berkeley. These include three small bronzes, two terra cotta relief sculptures, a Cagnes landscape painting, and works on paper, and also a ceramic vase by
Jean Renoir. Works after 1900 also include two portraits of Crocker family members by
Giovanni Boldini.
Works on paper The collection of approximately 1,500 Old Master drawings include examples from the major European schools. Collection strengths include European drawings from the 17th and 18th centuries. Major drawings by artists such as
Albrecht Dürer,
Fra Bartolommeo,
François Boucher, and
Jean-Honoré Fragonard are represented. American photography and modern and contemporary California prints are also strengths of the works on paper collection. ==Museum buildings==