At first glance, this picture doesn’t look like much. A low-slung adobe building sits at the edge of a deserted plaza. The image’s most distinctive feature is the “Johnson & Allanson” merchant sign at left, just enough evidence to help pinpoint the location as Los Angeles around 1858. Further investigation reveals the structure to be El Palacio, the fashionable residence of Don Abel Stearns, the pueblo’s wealthiest citizen.

The recent discovery of a photograph of El Palacio in the Huntington’s archives raises the total number of known Los Angeles daguerreotypes to an astonishing two. But neither still exists. Like the other daguerreotype image, a view of San Pedro in 1852, this image is a photographic reproduction of the original.

Actual daguerreotypes depicting 19th-century Los Angeles do not appear to have survived over time. Because the Huntington archives boast nearly 1 million photographic images, it is not unusual for staff members to make surprising discoveries as they go through the process of cataloging the collection. But this find stands out simply because of the extraordinary rarity of any Los Angeles images from the 1850s.

What accounts for this stunning lapse in the visual record? Part of the reason may be that Los Angeles in the 1850s was neither bustling nor prosperous. It had a reputation for its violent lawlessness as much as anything else. It is unlikely that many landscape images of the hardscrabble village of only a few thousand souls were made in the first place. Even so, an enterprising few decided to give the photography profession a go. Dr. William B. Osborne and Moses Searles opened the city’s first studio in August 1851, a make-shift affair located in El Palacio itself. Portraiture was their stock-in-trade, but more lucrative ventures, or at least steadier work, soon beckoned. Only six men would follow suit in the ensuing decade, and the majority remained in business less than a year. Not until the mid-1870s did photography become stable employment in Los Angeles.

Jennifer A. Watts is Curator of Photographs at The Huntington.