Charles Christian Nahl

Charles Christian Nahl was born in Germany in 1818 to a family of artists. He studied in Kassel and Paris before his family joined the Gold Rush, arriving in California in 1851. After a brief time mining, Nahl focused on art, painting portraits of miners and making a visual record of the people, places, plants, and animals he encountered in the West. He went on to establish a studio in San Francisco and was one of the first painters to enjoy the patronage of wealthy Californians.