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Dominic Winter Auctions is to offer the only known example of a near full-face portrait of a Southwold fisherman dating from c.1886. The 34 x 29cm portrait is an albumen print rather than the platinum more usually associated with Emerson's work and is inscribed on the back by Emerson 'An Old Sea-Dog - Taken Direct, Negative untouched, by P.H. Emerson BA MB, (Copyright)'. It is estimated at £1000-1500.

The catalogue entry notes:  A completely full-face portrait of the same fisherman, titled 'Old Fisherman' is reproduced on p. 153 of Nancy Newhall's book, P. H. Emerson - The Fight for Photography as Fine Art (1975). On page 155 is another photograph of the same fisherman, who there appears standing between two seated fishermen in front of a shed with the sign 'Nyl-Ghau' above the door. Both are platinum prints and belong to Emerson's Southwold series of c.1886, copies of which are held by George Eastman House, New York.

The identity of the sitter remains elusive, but this particular 'old sea dog' clearly captured Emerson's imagination, as he very rarely took close-up portraits such as this. The light here falls beautifully on the subject's hair, eyes and facial features, giving the fisherman a well-lived, contemplative and poetic expression. In the known photograph, which Emerson typically produced as a platinum print, the sitter's gaze is directly at the viewer, rather than into the distance over the viewer's shoulder, as here. It is very unlikely that the negative exists and this print is quite possibly unique.

Photographs, Posters & Postcards, Autographs, Documents & Ephemera
Dominic Winter Auctions
20 May, 2026, live and online
See: https://www.dominicwinter.co.uk/Auction/Details/photo26a-photographs-posters--postcards-autographs-documents--ephemera/?au=892

A couple of lots in the forthcoming Flints Auction on 29 April caught BPH's eye. First up is a Thornton-Pickard Type C aerial camera c.1915. The camera is part of a whole outfit used by the Royal Flying Corps. It is estimated at £4000-6000. Alongside this is a TP Hythe Type III camera gun, and a collection of documents relating to 2/Lt. Frederick Charles Victor Laws a significant figure in the early development of aerial photography and aircraft-mounted cameras.

Elsewhere is a glass rummer engraved to H H Leithead form H H Bright, R Miller and F B Burdon, Hartlepool 1857. Opposite is an engraving of a collapible wet-plate camera. It is estimated at £100-200. The lot was previously offered in a ceramic auction in 2024. Leithead was a member of the Liverpool Photographic Society in 1858.  

A Kodak Wide Angle Camera, c1940, with Carl Zeiss Jena Protar f/18 85mm lens, black, serial no. 307509, body, G, lens, VG, some light internal haze, complete with three DDS, is of the type used by Bill Brandt for his distorted nudes. A copy of his Bill Brandt: Nudes 1945-1980, is also included. Estimate £700-1000. 

Fine Photographica
Wednesday 29th of April 2026 at 10:00 BST Lots: 1 to 543
See: https://www.flintsauctions.com/auction/details/fcam18-fine-photographica/?au=107

A Vixex colour print from Madame Yevonde has sold at an auction in the United States for $29,210 (approx £21,800). Metis which dates to c1935 was included in an auction of Photographic Masterworks from an Important Private Collection by New Jersey based Rago auctions on 12 February 2026. It had been estimated at $3000-5000. The print had been exhibited by Yevonde at the National Exhibition of Professional Photography held by the Institute of British Photographers in 1952.

It had previously appeared at Christie's auctions in 1992 and 2012 where it sold for £462 and €22,500 respectively. An example is also held in the National Portrait Gallery collection which holds the surviving Yevonde negatives.  

See: https://www.ragoarts.com/auctions/2026/02/photographic-masterworks-from-an-important-private-collection/100 and the NPG Collection print

The Kent County Council Art Collection began to be sold off at auction in 2025. A sale in July last year sold around 350 lithographs, linocuts, screenprints, etchings, wood cuts and engravings. Advice from an unnamed art historian was that the material might not represent any official historic value but was nonetheless interesting. The lots included scenes depicting Dover, Tenterden, Maidstone, Ivychurch, Canterbury and Sepham Heath near Sevenoaks with seascapes, wildlife and of course oast houses, all of which one might have thought would have been of interest and value across Kent. Cabinet Member for Community and Regulatory Services and Reform councillor Paul Webb said: “The reason for selling is a practical one, with the closure of the basement store where the art works are kept." The Reform council is under severe budgetary pressure and struggling to find savings which would allow it to deliver on a promised council tax cut.  

Most of the art was purchased forty years ago as part of the Kent Visual Arts Loan Scheme (KVALS) designed for lending to schools and work places. This offered the opportunity for people to experience and benefit from art on a daily basis when it might otherwise not have been a possibility. KVALS has not run for more than 10 years and the artwork has been in storage since that time. The catalogue can still be viewed online. The Kent County Council Art Collection runs from lots one to 92 with an estimated maximum value of £45,700 and individual lots varying from £200 to £1,500. The eventual hammer price was just over £40,000. 

Now a second group of some 160 lots from the Collection has been put up for auction which includes prints, oil paintings and a significant group of photographs from Tony Ray Jones, Andy Goldsworthy, Timothy Fagan, John Firman, Terry Hulf, Chris Shore, and others. The photographs run from lot 331-396. 

The Tony Ray Jones work consists of 33 prints mainly taken in Kent, but also including work from London, the Isle of Man and Brighton. All are estimated at £300-500. 

Thanks to Paul Reas for flagging up the sale.

Paint. Print. Sculpt.
Sworders, online auction
10 March 2026 
See: https://www.sworder.co.uk/auction/search/?au=1298

Image: Tony Ray Jones (British, 1941-1972), 'Trooping the Colour', 1967

Chiswick Auctions is to offer a group of 29 lots from the estate of Cherry Kearton (1871-1940). Kearton was one half of the Kearton brothers who are widely acknowledged as the pioneers of natural history photography and cinematography made in the field and underpinned by fieldcraft and scientific rigour. Both were Fellows of the Royal Photographic Society. Richard (1862-1928) and Cherry Kearton published their natural history photography widely in book form, through articles and lantern shows, and their films were widely exhibited. One lot is from British ornithologist C.H. Bentham, Richard Kearton's son-in-law and his co-author on Pocket Book of Birds (1925). 

The Cherry Kearton material includes Kearton's prototype rifle camera from c.1919, a tropical hand camera and his 3a Autographic Kodak Special model B camera, a selection of photographs (including correspondence and photographs with Theodore Roosevelt from 1909), press cuttings, documents relating to Kearton's publications, books, camera patents and manuscript material. One lot includes a selection 35mm nitrate ciné film. 

Michael Pritchard writes...Of the two Kearton brothers Cherry was widely acknowledged to be the more significant and 'demonstrated the outstanding value of the camera in the study of wild life', although the collaboration was a significant one until Richard's early death. As the photographic press noted the Kearton's books 'marked an entuirely new approach to the study of animal and bird life'. Although birds were the Kearton's initial subject, they expanded their work to include wider fauna and flora.

Summing up their contribution in 1940 the British Journal of Photography noted 'more than any other naturalists they developed photography and the photograph as the mode and the end of personal observation...and laid the foundation for a technique entirely different from any that had gone before'.

Cherry Kearton's work started in his native Yorkshire and spread more widely across Britain and then into Africa. Photography in daylight was supplemented by flashlight, and cinematography was added to still photography. Their work studying nature 'largely put an end to the wholesale slaughter of birds and beasts in the so-called interests of science' and their approach was followed by many other photographers.

Auction: The Art of Nature
Chiswick Auctions
10 February 2026 at 1100
Lots 66-94
See lot details here

Images: (top): a selection from 80 held in Kearton's library, including signed books (est. £600-800); (top, right): Prototype rifle camera c.1919 (est £2000-3000);  (centre): flashlight photograph of a maneless African Lion and Cherry Kearton holding a lion cub c1909 (est £100-150); (lower): Kearton's personal press cutting's archive (est 200-300). All courtesy Chiswick Auctions. 

BPH reported on a new book by John Bevis The Keartons: Inventing Nature Photography in 2016 and the acquisition of a Kearton cinematographic camera by the then National Media Musuem in 2013. A second camera reputed to be owned by the Keartons was shown on the Antiques Roadshow in 2016. 

A collection of original Blake and Edgar glass plates and photographs, approx. 30 in number,  are to be sold through auction at Peacocks Auction House, Bedford https://www.peacockauction.co.uk on 5 December 2025.  Blake and Edgar were prominent photographers in Bedford from c1870 and the collection includes many Victorian photographs of Bedford as well as an additional collection dating from the 1950/70s.

Antique Furniture and Collectors Items
5 December 2025 from 1030
See the auction catalogue here

Leading Rosebury's Fine and Decorative auction on 10 July is a lot 142 a rare deluxe copy - one of twenty-five - of Emerson and Goodall's Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads (1886). The volume was part of a total limited edition of 200, with the twenty-five deluxe copies containing forty platinum prints mounted on India paper, bound in vellum and other enhanced printing. The lot is estimated at £30,000-50,000 with a starting bid of £20,000. 

Eslewhere is a portrait of Winston Churchill, signed and from the estate of his valet, by Edward Steichen. It is estimated at £1000-1500, with a starting bid of £700. 

Fine and Decorative
Rosebury's, London, 10 July 2025
Emerson, lot 142 - see here

UPDATE: Thelot sod for £52,240

The Franklin expedition portraits reported on here several weeks ago have sold for £350,000 (£444,500 including premium, exceeding the upper estimate. There's no news regarding the buyer and the lot will be subject to an export licence should the purchaser choose to export it. 

Details of the lot and illustrations are here: https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2023/travel-atlas-maps-photographs/studio-of-richard-beard-a-set-of-14-daguerreotypes

Offerings include an extremely rare solograph with includes a wonderful advertisement for Ezekiel Hawkins establishment.  Daguerreotype highlights include a killer guitar player, a spectacular close-up, a large frame with ten family images, half-plates, a Whitehurst stereo and a lovely postmortem.  Other hard images included a farmer with his prized steer, outdoor, a great half-plate military piece, a hotel and a rare identified Civil War panotype.  Cdv’s and cabinet cards include a  military photographer with camera, photographer advertisement, studio’s, an extremely rare still life of a photo retouching device, an image with Palmer Cox’s Brownies on the border, kids with dogs, occupational including a cool jockey, typesetters, bookies, and a disabled African American woman.  Other paper is highlighted by a camera supply booth.  

Of particular note for BPH readers is lot 28 (illustrated right and in large res on the website) which is described: 'Extremely rare and exciting sixth-plate English ambrotype of a man giving a speech in Regent’s Park Haymarket which is known as the Cumberland Market area today.  This is possibly one the earliest known photographs of this area...' 

Closing 10PM EST, Wednesday, September 28, 2016

http://www.capitolgallery.com/CapitolGallery/catalogmain.htm

Dominic Winter's autumn Photography auction comprises 147 lots from 1850s onwards. Highlight of the sale is anticipated to be a series of 76 ballooning magic lantern slides that include 27 aerial photographic views of London (and one of the Eiffel Tower) by balloonist-aerial photographer pioneer Cecil Victor Shadbolt (1859-1892).

Among the aerial photographs is the earliest known surviving aerial photograph of Great Britain, a photograph of Stamford Hill taken by Shadbolt on 29 May 1882 (shown here). All the other photographs date from between then and Shadbolt's untimely death in a ballooning accident in 1892. A handful are captioned and signed by Shadbolt and the whole collection was clearly used as part of a magic lantern lecture series that Shadbolt used to give called Balloons and Ballooning. That colour slide with the unfortunate motto 'Upward and Onwards' is numbered 1 and clearly the start of the lecture. One of the other uncaptioned photographs shows the building of Crystal Palace and is surprisingly the oldest known surviving photograph of the building. Most of the photographs show amazing clarity but this photograph is a little more blurry due no doubt to the greater camera shake from flying in a tethered rather than free floating balloon. Other views include Blackheath, Catford Bridge, Sutton, Beckenham Junction, Thornton Heath and Dartford.

There is also an 1884 photograph of Shadbolt and 'Captain' Dale in the grounded balloon car with Shadbolt's camera clearly visible and attached to the basket (see my profile icon). The collection is estimated at £7,000-10,000 but for those interested I have created a Flickr slideshow with copyright watermarks to stop these escaping into the public domain too easily. Any comments or suggestions about some of the uncaptioned locations in the slideshow will be gratefully received: 

SLIDESHOW

Other highlights include a private collection of large and early platinum prints of India by little-known Victor Pont, portraits of Tennyson by Julia Margaret Cameron, O.G. Rejlander and James Mudd, an interesting album of rural China by an unidentified Western photographer/geologist 1875, three unidentified salt prints, good prints of Rome by Macpherson, a good series of vintage British Airways photographs by Norman Parkinson and an archive of studio photographs of British royalty and Society by Marcus Adams and his son Gilbert, from the family.

Photographers represented in the auction include Marcus Adams, Lai Afong, Albert Arthur Allen, Thomas Anna, Edouard-Denis Baldus, Cecil Beaton, Bisson Freres, Julia Margaret Cameron, Charles Clifford, two portraits of Charles Darwin, Philip Henry Delamotte, Olive Edis, Peter Henry Emerson, George Fiske, Francis Frith, Hill & Adamson, Lee Lockwood, Robert Macpherson, James Mudd, Eadweard Muybridge, Victor Pont, NASA, Kazumasa Ogawa, Norman Parkinson, William Lake Price, Victor Prout, Oscar Gustave Rejlander, Cecil V. Shadbolt, Kozabura Tamamura, John Whistler.

Here's the latest Newsletter, which covers this controversion subject: http://www.iphotocentral.com/news/issue_view.php/199/189 .  Too much bad information has been circulating about this auction.  The newsletter has a lot of other important stories as well, which are noted below:

One of fifteen sets of the Reports by the Juries (1852) given by the Commissioners of the Great Exhibition of 1851 to William Henry Fox Talbot and presented by him to his daughter Matilda sold at auction in London today for £216,000 including buyer's premium (£180,000 hammer price). The successful bidder was the London-based dealer, author and collector of middle eastern photography Badr El-Hage. El-Hage, who is known to have close links with several museums and collectors in the Middle East, was presumably buying the four volume set on behalf of a client.

Bidding on the lot, which was estimated at a very modest £20,000-30,000, opened at £16,000 with commission bids and then it quickly became a bidding battle between a seated and relaxed El-Hage and a nervous tall gentleman standing close by him at the back of the auction room. The standing gent was taking instructions via a mobile phone. One telephone line was also open.

El-Hage entered the bidding early on battling with the standing gentleman who looked to have it within his grasp at £150,000 before El-Hage, returned at £160,000. The standing man paused, hands shaking, and asked his caller whether he wanted to carry on. For a fraction of a second the lot appeared to be his at £170,000. El-Hage, with no hesitation, then bid again taking the price to t £180,000. The standing man asked his caller if he wished to bid and then stopped at that point. El-Hage raised his bidding number 795 and the auctioneer brought his hammer down. The lot had sold.

The four volume set which contained some of the strongest calotype prints in any set I have seen will require an export licence. As there are other sets in the UK - albeit without the particular Talbot provenance - this is unlikely to present any great hurdle. There are sets in, for example, the British Library, at the National Media Museum and in the University of London's Senate House. Furthermore, there are, presumably, still sets in the hands of descendents or passed to libraries from the 115 recipients presented with copies back in 1852 and some more of the 15 sets that Talbot was awarded - although it is likely that the full quota was never completed.

There have been two relatively recent sales: in 2001 Christie's sold a set with medals, originally presented to Lt. Crossman RE for £64,250 (including premium) and in 2007 a set formerly from the Fred Spira Collection, originally presented to John Gott, sold for €75,600 (inc premium) approx £45,200.

A link to the original BPH blog report which includes a link through to the full catalogue description is here: http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/reports-by-the-juries-1851

An archive of Brunel material consigned by a descendant of Sir Marc Isambard Brunel was sold at auction on 2 November 2010 (click to see the full sale) by Tooveys in Sussex. Included in the sale were several items of photographic interest, click to see the full descriptions:

• BRUNEL, Isambard Kingdom (1806-1859). - Robert HOWLETT and George DOWNES (photographers). A stereoscopic 'double' patent, titled on pink paper label verso '16. "The Leviathan" Steam Ship. Portrait of Mr. Brunel'. [London:] Photographic Institution, [n.d. but circa 1857?]. Overall card size 174 x 85mm. (images with arched top, each 75 x 73mm.). - And four other related images (stereocard views of the Great Eastern). Provenance: Lady Sophia Macnamara Hawes neé Brunel (1802-1878), sister of Isambard Kingdom Brunel (inscriptions verso). Sold for £17,000

• BRUNEL, Isambard Kingdom (1806-1859). - Unknown photographer. A shaped photographic portrait of Brunel. [N.p.: n.d. but circa 1857 or earlier]. Irregularly shaped and laid down on thin card. (Faded). Provenance: Lady Sophia Macnamara Hawes neé Brunel (1802-1878), sister of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Apparently a calotype, sold for £2200

• HAWES, Sir Benjamin, (1797-1862), and Lady Sophia Macnamara HAWES neé BRUNEL (1802-1878). An album of topographical, military and portrait photographs, apparently assembled by or for Sir Benjamin and Lady Sophia Hawes. [N.p.: n.d. but circa 1857-1868]. Large 4to (283 x 226mm.), 66 leaves mounted with an original pencilled watercolour portrait of Lady Hawes by her daughter, dated 1865; 96 mounted photographic portraits (most carte-de-visite format, including 16 of royalty, a number accompanied by clipped signatures); 59 British topographical photographic views; 5 topographical photographic views of Canton (one inscribed 'taken by Corporal Wotherspoon R.E. April 1850' but torn into image area); 35 photographs of cannons, military equipment and constructions (one with associated label 'Photographic Establishment of the War Department'). (The majority slightly faded.) Original green morocco gilt, g.e. (scuffed, lower joint split). Note: Sir Benjamin served as Minister of War during the Crimean War. Sold for £13,000

• DICKINS, Frederick Victor (1838-1915, ?compiler). - Unknown photographer. An album of mounted topographical photographs of Japan. [Japan: n.d. but circa 1870-1879.]. Folio (360 x 260mm.) 54 mounted photographs (most 210 x 283mm.); 35 mounted coloured scenes of Japanese life printed on cloth; 4 mounted Japanese botanical prints on paper, on 55 card leaves. Original green half-morocco (worn). Provenance: Thomas Dickins (Edgemoor House, Manchester, bookplate). Note: Frederick Victor Dickins, an orientalist of note and translator of Japanese literature, lived in Japan from 1871 to 1879. He appears to have annotated the album for Thomas Dickins. Sold for £4000

• RAILWAYS. Unknown photographer. A fine side view of 'The Puffing Billy'. [N.p.: n.d. but circa 1855-1862.] 1 photograph (200 x 278mm.) backed onto paper with early manuscript caption slip. (Somewhat faded). Note: 'The Puffing Billy is one of the two earliest surviving locomotives. Sold for £750

• PHOTOGRAPHS. A carte-de-visite album containing a good selection of photographs depicting 19th Century authors, scientists and others. [N.p.: n.d. but circa 1870-1890.] 4to (285 x 215mm.) 23 leaves with 140 carte-de-visite or cabinet photographs, a few with associated clipped signatures, subjects include C. Darwin, T. Huxley, L. Pasteur, T. Edison, H.W. Longfellow, N. Hawthorne, C. Dickens, E.A. Poe, Gen. R.E. Lee, Charles Peace, J.E. Millais. Original morocco (worn). Sold for £4000

• TALBOT, William Henry Fox (1800-1877). A mounted calotype from 'The Pencil of Nature', with manuscript title to mount 'Bust of Patroculus' [n.p.: n.d. but 1843]. Calotype (143 x 139mm.) With ruled ink border, on original thin card mount (303 x 240mm.), with number '17' below lower-right corner of the calotype, and title in ink at lower-right corner of the mount. (Print faded, light soiling to mount). Note: plate 17, showing Talbot's plaster cast of a Hellenistic marble, from his 'The Pencil of Nature'. Sold for £600