2006.46.1

• photography

This is a half plate ambrotype of a boy in a studio portrait posed with a toy gun. The boy (George Chestnutwood) stands facing the camera wearing a plaid tunic with long pants. The boy holds a gun in his right hand, and leans his elbow on a fabric covered table at right, next to a cap with braided trim. The ambrotype rests in a cardboard case covered in leatherette and lined on the interior top side in red velvet. A=ambrotype B=case, bottom C=case, top

George Chestnutwood (1844 - April 24, 1898) is the great grandfather of the donor, James Viebrock, and his brother William Viebrock of Berkeley. Chestnutwood travelled overland from Ohio to California in the early 1850s, settling in Stockton, where he later became a prominent merchant.