Peter Quivey and the Mountain Lion

Peter Quivey was a California pioneer who fought in the Mexican-American War before settling in San Jose. This portrait presents the subject as mediating between the frontier and civilization through contrasting details such as the primitive knife and the sophisticated revolver, and the wild mountain lion and the trained hunting dog. Quivey’s two identities—as a frontiersman and as an art patron—reveal the competing social and cultural agendas that coexisted in Gold Rush California.