The official motto of San Francisco
“Gold in Peace, Iron in War”
Charles Christian Nahl, the foremost painter of San Francisco during the Golden Gate Empire years, presented in graphic form the two opposing forces of the era: violence and greed on the one hand, the desire for orderliness and high culture on the other.
Nahl’s certificate for the San Francisco Vkigilance Committee of 1856 sets forth the goals and determinations of those citizens to end the crime and violence, and to work toward building a city based on commercial prosperity and cultural enrichment.
The building just below the angel of justice is the headquarters of the committee, who can be seen in actions in five oval cartouches at the top and bottom of the certificate. For a close-up view of other details, click the image below.
Click the above image for detailed views of the certificate
No other work of visual art so thoroughly captures the two side of Gold Rush society as Nahl’s Sunday Morning in the Mines. On the left side of the painting: gambling, drunkenness, thievery, wild rides; on the right: reading of Scripture, cleanliness, maintaining home ties (the miner in the cabin is writing home to his mother), and honoring the Sabbath as a day of rest.
Click the image below for detail images of Sunday Morning in the Mines
