American Historical Ephemera & Photography

Seated portrait of Dona Ana Maria "Anita" de la Guerra wearing a dark dress, her head draped with a dark lace hood leaving only her face and a sliver of her neck visible to the camera. (Some tarnishing and scratching along mat opening, some additional scratches and wipes throughout; re-glazed and resealed 1999.) Housed in a leatherette push-button case (wear/cracking to spine and surface wear). 

De la Guerra was born at the Pueblo de Los Angeles on 6 November 1821 to prominent Santa Barbara leader, Jose Antonio de la Guerra y Noriega, and his wife, Maria Antonia Carillo. Anita, as she was sometimes called, married Alfred Robinson on 24 January 1836, at the age of 15. Their wedding party was a remarkable affair, much of which was described in Richard Henry Dana Jr.'s 1840 classic, Two Years Before the Mast. Anita travelled to the east coast with her husband in 1838, staying there for around 13 years and only returning to Santa Barbara a few years before her untimely death (varying years of death are reported, from 1854-56).

2 photographs, described as a photonegative and a photoprint, being laterally reversed images of Dona Ana Maria as she is featured in the daguerreotype offered here, are part of the California Historical Society Collection, 1860-1960.