Joaquin Murieta

Additional Information

Provenance:
Bonhams, Los Angeles, CA, 1996

Created in 1875, Charles Nahl’s Joaquín Murieta—sometimes titled Joaquín Murieta: The Vaque—depicts one of America’s most famous and notorious Western folk heroes. Although many versions of the story exist, the general myth held that Murieta was a vaquero from Mexico who traveled north to California to mine for gold sometime around 1850. A false acquisition was made, possibly over a stolen burro, and Murieta and his family were brutalized, after which Murieta went on a murderous spree to get vengeance. A manhunt in 1853 claimed to have killed Murieta and several other bandits, but legends of his survival were quick to spread. Today, Joaquín Murieta is all but invisible to contemporary audiences, but during the late 1800s his story was known widely, as was his nickname, “The Robin Hood of the West.” Murieta’s Zorro-like myth spread quickly in 1854 after Cherokee writer John Rollin Ridge wrote the dime novel The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta, which was the first novel published in California, the first novel published by a Native American, and the first American novel to feature a Mexican protagonist.

Like Murieta, Charles Nahl was lured to California (from Germany) by the gold rush of the 1840s. It was there, possibly near Sacramento, where Nahl likely first heard the Murieta story. The painter created as many as a dozen images of the folk hero, including Joaquín Murieta, which is likely his largest and most important painting of the Western figure.

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