The Jules Rupalley Album

The Miners - Group of miners around well-like shaft in rocky setting
[Quirot & Company (active ca. 1851-ca. 1853), lithographer and publisher]

California flowering plant -
Morning-glory-like plant with six-petalled white flowers

Peruvian flowering cactus

California flowering Spring plant with roots

California flowering vine -
Stem with small white flowers, seed pod, and individual seed

California flowering plant -
Plant with yellow and white flowers, and roots

California Snow Flower -
Flowering magenta color plant in situ growing from snow

California flowering plant -
Plant in situ showing broad leaves and pale pink flower, and two details

California flowering plant -
Plant with five-petalled pink flowers (cropped)

California flowering plant -
Stem with leaves and large, yellow flowers

Chrysalis of a caterpillar

Caterpillar eating a morning glory leaf

Caterpillars, chrysalises, a butterfly, and insects of California

California insect: enemy of tarantula

Quail's head

View of Greenwood Valley, California. 1851

"Small mining town with main street running from left to right; mostly one-story wooden buildings line each side; small figures, horses and horse-drawn carriages scattered throughout scene; groups of miners, some digging with picks. Sparsely forested hills in distance."

Portrait of Indian man from Stanislaus County, California

Portrait of Indian girl

The Jules Rupalley album forms part of the Robert B. Honeyman, Jr. Collection of Early Californian and Western American Pictorial Material at the Online Archive of California.
It contains "over one hundred watercolor drawings primarily of plants and insects from Northern California. The views were executed during Rupalley's travels across California southern mines, the area south of Stockton and around the Stanislaus and Tuolumne Rivers, and Sierra Nevada foothills (Rupalley calls this area "Californie du Sud"). Some of the drawings have annotations in French and include transliterations of Indian plant names. The album also contains several views executed during Rupalley's travels aboard the ships "Louis" and "Surprise", and a number of published prints (not by Rupalley) related to mining and California life."

"Born near Caen, France on March 1, 1810. Rupalley arrived in San Francisco with the Gold Rush in 1851 aboard the ship Louis. He lived in Benicia and Vallejo and spent several years in Stockton. As well as the pursuit of gold, he was an avid botanist. Active in northern California until 1857, he then returned to his family in Caen where he was a tax collector for the city. Most of his watercolors and sketches are of flora and fauna in the Sierra and around the Stanislaus and Tuolumne Rivers. His name was given to a California flower called Rupalleya volubilis." [source]

'Splendide Californie - French Artists' Impressions of the Golden State, 1786-1900' at the California Historical Society (note the 'Image Gallery').