E-Photo
Issue #239  2/16/2018
 
Dominic Winter’s "Photography: The First 150 Years" Spring Auction Set for March 9th
Portrait of Sir John Herschel by Julia Margaret Cameron from the Herschel Family Estate (Estimate at £30,000-50,000)
Portrait of Sir John Herschel by Julia Margaret Cameron from the Herschel Family Estate (Estimate at £30,000-50,000)

Dominic Winter’s "Photography: The First 150 Years" spring auction takes place on Friday, March 9th and features 19th- and 20th-century photography in all its many guises.

The highlight of the auction is predicted to be an iconic albumen print of a portrait of Sir John Herschel by Julia Margaret Cameron (ref.: Cox & Ford no. 674), which not only has excellent tones but comes from the Herschel family by direct descent through Herschel’s daughter Amelia and her husband Sir Thomas Wade. Estimated at £30,000-50,000, it is by far the highest estimate of the five Cameron portraits in the sale.

With the same provenance is a rare copy photograph made by John Werge in 1890 from Herschel’s own 1839 photograph of his father’s famed Forty-Foot Telescope at Slough. The original is now largely faded and is considered the oldest surviving photograph on glass.

Other early big name photographers featured with individual photographs in the sale include Lewis Carroll, Hill & Adamson, Oscar Rejlander, William H. Fox Talbot, Francis Frith, John Dillwyn Llewelyn and Hugh Owen.

Also on offer will be a rare group of 12 wax paper negatives, mid 1850s, attributed to Thomas Keith. The negatives are just one of many highlights from the John Hannavy collection to be sold in the same sale. The Hannavy collection also contributes to the Victorian photography section with an albumen print of Julia Margaret Cameron’s "Love" and a collection of 31 salt prints of the Crimea by Roger Fenton.

The end of the 500-lot sale will be devoted to John Hannavy’s extraordinary collection of cased images, ranging from stereo daguerreotypes by Claudet and others through good ambrotypes and other unusual rarities, culminating with the finest private collection of union cases in the U.K.

Whole-plate thermoplastic case, ‘The Landing of Columbus’ (Berg 1-1), in superb condition, which houses a fine hand-colored ambrotype of a young woman (Estimate £1500-2000)
Whole-plate thermoplastic case, ‘The Landing of Columbus’ (Berg 1-1), in superb condition, which houses a fine hand-colored ambrotype of a young woman (Estimate £1500-2000)

The highlight of the 100 lots in this section will be one of three known whole-plate designs, "The Landing of Columbus" (Berg 1-1), in superb condition. It houses a fine hand-colored ambrotype of a young woman and is estimated at £1500-2000. This and many of the items in Hannavy’s collection were featured in his book "Case Histories: The Presentation of the Victorian Photographic Portrait, 1840-1875".

The sale is rounded out with the usual array of good travel photograph albums including India and Japan (Herbert Ponting), cartes-de-visite, stereoviews, lantern slides, folders and groups of material themed by subject, which include an interesting, large Dutch archive of 19th and early 20th-century travel and genre subjects.

The final curiosity of the 19th century is a rare French photographer’s wooden handcart from the 1890s, featuring the name of the photographer "Guilleminot" in gold paint.

The 20th century is represented with some 50 lots made up from two interesting collections of Magnum press print photographs (Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, etc.), circa 1950; and press and exhibition photographs from the Colin Osman archive, circa 1970s/1980s.

For further information please contact Chris Albury, chris@dominicwinter.co.uk. Printed and online catalogues are available at: https://www.dominicwinter.co.uk/sale/-photo18a.

Here are the full contact details: Dominic Winter Auctioneers, Mallard House, Broadway Lane, South Cerney, Cirencester, Gloucestershire, GL7 5UQ UK; phone: +44 (0)1285 860006; general email: info@dominicwinter.co.uk. The auction website is: https://www.dominicwinter.co.uk.