Oriana Weatherbee Day
Oriana Weatherbee Day was born in Marshfield, Massachusetts, in 1838. In 1877 she and her husband moved to Vallejo, California, and between 1877 and 1884 she traveled the length of El Camino Real, visiting all 21 of the then-disintegrating California missions. Day sought to paint every individual mission, though instead of documenting the buildings as the ruins she encountered, she rendered them at the height of their historical influence, showing daily life during California’s missionary past.
What would you change if you could travel back in time?
This painting shows a Native American ceremony in the courtyard of the Mission San Francisco Solano de Sonoma, in present-day Sonoma, California. The mission operated for only 11 years before it was secularized; the northwestern-most post, it was the last mission founded in California and had been established without church approval. The local people who were forced to convert to Christianity were primarily members of the Coast Miwok, Pomo, Suisunes, Wappo, and Patwin tribes.
Gift of Mrs. Eleanor Martin
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