California State Capitol Museum
Sacramento, CA
916-324-0333
The California State Capitol Art Collection
The California State Capitol Museum in Sacramento, California holds an impressive collection of fine art. Visitors can see historic and modern-day paintings and sculptures dated from the mid-1850s forward. The collection includes portraits of thirty five governors as well as portraits of icons of American history including George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. While some scholars attribute the Lincoln portrait to Jane Stuart, daughter of Gilbert Charles Stuart, others favor William Wynstanley, an English artist known for his copies of Gilbert Stuart's Washington portraits.
(left to right: Attributed to Jane Stuart, Portrait of George Washington, c. 1854, oil on canvas, California State Parks, State Capitol Museum; Attributed to G. A. Healey, Portrait of Abraham Lincoln, c. 1908, oil on canvas, California State Parks, State Capitol Museum; William Cogswell, Portrait of Leland Stanford, 1873, California State Parks, State Capitol Museum; Robert Rishell, Portrait of Ronald Reagan, 1974, California State Parks, State Capitol Museum)
Please click on the thumbnail images for enlargements.
Excellent mural art graces walls in Capitol rooms. The History of California by Arthur Frank Mathews (1860-1945) is a set of murals which were commissioned through an act by the Legislature in 1913. The Legislature appropriated $10,000 for a series of mural paintings for the Capitol rotunda. This series of twelve paintings depicts the historical epoch periods of California. To each period is devoted a triptych: the coming of the white gods; the Spanish occupation and building of missions; the pouring in of civilization following gold discovery, swift industrial development, and the achievements of civilization in California in the present and future.
Another triptych mural,The Origin and Development of the Name of the State of California by Lucile Lloyd (1894-1941), with assistants Ben Messick and Claude A. van Zandt was painted in 1937 and produced under the aegis of the Works Progress Administration's Federal Arts Project. These murals were commissioned for the California State Building in Los Angeles in 1936. A 1971 earthquake found the building to be structurally unsound and it was torn down in 1975. The murals were removed and placed in storage. In 1991, the Senate Rules Committee authorized the work necessary to restore the murals, and in January 1992, they were installed in a Senate Hearing Room.
(left to right: Arthur and Lucia Mathews, History of California, 1914, oil on canvas, California State Parks, State Capitol Museum)
(left to right: Arthur and Lucia Mathews, History of California (detail) , 1914, oil on canvas, California State Parks, State Capitol Museum)
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Sculpture at the museum includes Larkin Goldsmith Mead's Columbus' Last Appeal to Queen Isabella, plus exterior pediment statuary by Pietro Mezzara (1820-1883). Columbus' Last Appeal to Queen Isabella was purchased from Mr. and Mrs. Legrand Lockwood by pioneer banker Darius Ogden Mills for $30,000, who then presented it the State in 1883. Slightly over life size, the sculpture weighs approximately nine tons including the base.
(left to right: Larkin Goldsmith Mead, Columbus' Last Appeal to Queen Isabella, 1868 to 1871, Cararra marble, California State Parks, State Capitol Museum; Larkin Goldsmith Mead, Columbus' Last Appeal to Queen Isabella (detail) , 1868 to 1871, Cararra marble, California State Parks, State Capitol Museum)
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Mezzara created the original exterior figures and urns on the Capitol's rooftop. Thirty figures, urns, and emblems placed on the Capitol's parapet balustrade by 1873 were removed during the 1906 renovation and subsequently lost. Today, only the west front pediment group at the tympanum is original. At center is Minerva, representing California, an 11-foot high figure dressed in classical robes holding a lance and shield,with a bear crouched at her feet. Flanking her are statues symbolizing Education, Industry, Justice and Mining.
The California State Capitol Museum is located downtown Sacramento at 10th and L Streets.
Resource Library editor's note:
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and biographical information on artists cited above in America's Distinguished Artists, a national registry of historic artists.
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