The banking lobby at the Sansome Street entrance to the Bentley Federal Reserve contains a mural by Jules Guerin. “Traders of the Adriatic” features prominently in the entrance to the main lobby. It pays homage to the world of banking with its depiction of Venetian shipping merchants accepting receipts for goods on deposit and slaves attending to the masters of galleons while the masters give the Venetians rugs, gold, silver, and incense for safekeeping. In the background there is the Venetian coat of arms. The mural is oil on canvas and is dated 1922.
As part of a building restoration in 2004 the mural by was cleaned and preserved.
Jules Vallée Guérin was born in St Louis, Missouri on November 18, 1866 and moved to Chicago to study art in 1880. In 1900 he established a studio in New York, where he made his name as an architectural delineator and illustrator. His first major break occurred when he was hired by Charles McKim to create some illustrations for the McMillan Plan for Washington D.C. These were exhibited and published in 1902. Architects began hiring Guérin to make similar renderings of their buildings. In 1912, when the architect Henry Bacon was competing with John Russell Pope to win the commission for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., he hired Guérin to create renderings of alternative designs. The paintings, still in the National Archives, were likely influential in Bacon’s winning the commission.
Despite his wish to be regarded as a major serious artist, Jules Guérin is most highly regarded as an illustrator and architectural delineator.
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