Richard Fattorini's Blog (12)

Victorian 'Spirit Photographs'. Album of 29 photographs by Frederick Hudson and others. The majority of the photographs are evidently the work of a single photographer and are highly reminiscent of known photographs by F.M. Parkes. They are typical of "spirit photographs" produced in the late 1860s and early 1870s by…

The Garrett Herman collection is an unusually comprehensive group of works centred on Charles Darwin, his influences, and those who he influenced in turn. 

At the outset of his collecting life, Mr Herman concentrated on books included in Printing and the Mind of Man and Bern Dibner’s…

A new photograph by William Henry Fox Talbot has been discovered in an album brought to Sotheby's for valuation. The early photogenic drawing shows a negative of a fern. Also in the album is a faded photograph showing a print which is signed by Talbot and dated 1839. 

The album also contains…

A FINE AND RARE PHOTOGRAPH OF IRISH POET AUBREY THOMAS DE VERE (1814-1902), who was brother in law to Sir Henry Taylor (1800-1886). Carroll had…

AN ALBUM OF EARLY PHOTOGRAPHS, SOME ATTRIBUTED TO MAJOR FRANCIS GRESLEY. [C.1859-EARLY 1860S]. This album includes 15 photographs of Radley College pupils and staff taken in 1859 by an unidentified photographer, comprising 12 individual portraits (each sitter named on the mount in pencil), and 3 group photographs: the…

Sotheby's next auction of Travel, Atlases, Maps and Natural History, will take place in London on 17 November 2015. Viewing will be 12, 13, 15 and 16 November or other times by appointment. The auction includes photographs of Spain, Polar Exploration, the Middle East, Latin…

Travel, Atlases, Maps and Natural History…

An album of 71 albumen prints by John Thomson of Swatow (Shantou), Amoy (Xiamen) and Formosa (Taiwan) sold for £134,500 at Sotheby's London on 14th May 2013 in a sale of Travel, Atlases, Maps and Natural History. The album had been purchased from Thomson by Dr Edward Irwin Scott (1846-1914), who ran a medical practice with his brother Dr Charles Scott in Swatow. The album included a presentation inscription by Dr Edward Scott to his mother-in-law dated 8th March 1874. Link here:…

A group of 18 photographs of China by Felice Beato taken in 1860 was sold for £218,500 on the 14th May 2013 at Sotheby's London in the sale of Travel, Atlases, Maps and Natural History. The collection included a magnificent 6-part panorama of Beijing, the first ever taken showing the interior of the city. The price is believed to be an auction record for a group of photographs by Beato. Link:…

The earliest known album of photographs compiled by Julia Margaret Cameron, including 15 unique images (most of which were hitherto unrecorded), and unseen on the market for more than forty years, sold at Sotheby's London on 12 December 2012 in the sale…

A rare album of photographs of China by John Thomson titled 'Foochow and the River Min' (1873) sold for an auction world-record of £349,250 (including buyer's premium) at Sotheby's on 15 November 2012. One of an edition of only 46, this album…