Esteban Munras

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Esteban Carlos Munras (1798–1850) was a 19th century artist, probably best known for the vibrantly-colored frescoes that adorn the chapel interior at Mission San Miguel Arcángel in California. Having studied art in his native city of Barcelona, Spain, Munras immigrated to the United States as a young man, ultimately making his home in the town of Monterey.

At the request of mission priest Father Juan Cabot (also a native of Barcelona), Munras traveled to San Miguel, north of Paso Robles, in the early 1820s. Various religious-themed scenes (known as the "Munras murals") were painted by the local Salinan Indians under Munras' direction. His designs reflected the Neo-Classical tastes of the period, and the reredos (main altarpiece) reflects knowledge of an artist who had seen the fashionably decorated churches in Mexico of that era; the interior has remained untouched and has been preserved in its original state. Don Munras was also a dealer in hides and tallow, the products of his rancho in Monterey. He built the first home to be constructed outside the walls of the El Presidio Reál de San Carlos de Monterey, where he established a thriving trading house attached to the family home. Munras imported fine household furnishings and necessities to the earliest settlers in California's first capital. Munras, the last Spanish diplomat to California, died in 1850 in Monterey.

[edit] References

• Field, Maria Antonia (1914). Chimes of Mission Bells: An Historical Sketch of California and Her Missions. Philopolis Press, San Francisco, CA. 
• The Munras Memorial Museum