E-Photo
Issue #209  11/5/2014
 
Bassenge Photography Auction Held Dec. 3rd in Berlin
Lot 4011 Edouard-Denis Baldus. Album with details of the Louvre architectural project. 1852 - 1857. 147 albumen prints and salt prints.
Lot 4011 Edouard-Denis Baldus. Album with details of the Louvre architectural project. 1852 - 1857. 147 albumen prints and salt prints.

Bassenge Photography Auctions in Berlin is holding its photography sale on December 3, 2014, at 3pm. The auction has 365 lots, which include photographs from the 19th century to 21st century, as well as some higher-end photobooks.

There is a wide selection of quality 19th century material. A fine group of 18 Berlin views by Leopold Ahrendts (lot 4003, 18,000€) from the 1850s/60s gives an early impression of this ever-changing city. An exceptionally rare and important album of architectural details of the Louvre by Edouard-Denis Baldus from 1852-57 (lot 4011, 22,000 €) is another documentation of architecture and its changing face. Another rarity is an album containing large-format nature prints in multiple colors, rendering ferns and other plants in an elegant and print-like fashion (lot 4061, 4,500€).

Other 19th-century items include: large-format prints by James Anderson (1200 €) and Robert MacPherson (1200 €), the “Bust of Patroclus” from The Pencil of Nature by William Henry Fox Talbot, selected ethnographic and landscape studies of Ceylon, India (Bourne), China, Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Sinai and Jordan, as well as rare and early stereoscopic views of San Francisco and the Pacific Coast by Carleton Watkins and Thomas Houseworth and some views of gold mining by the latter.

Other 19th century photographers include: Count Olympe Aguado, Eugène Atget, Antonio and Felice Beato, Bisson frères, Vincenzo Galdi, Wilhelm von Gloeden, Eadweard Muybridge, Carl Friedrich Mylius, Lewis Morris Rutherford, August Sachtler, William Saunders and Baron Raimund von Stillfried.

Lot 4175 Horst P. Horst. "Classical Still Life , New York", 1937
Lot 4175 Horst P. Horst. "Classical Still Life , New York", 1937

Highlights of the 20th century include a vintage print by André Kertész from 1929 (lot 4189, 5,000 €) depicting the artist’s wife and a group of friends on a picnic at Bois de Boulogne, Paris. There are several landscapes by Mario Giacomelli in excellent print quality (1,500 – 2,500 €). A rare image by Robert Mapplethorpe, showing Robert Sherman bending his head back (lot 4214, 6,000 €), offers collectors an opportunity to purchase both quality and uniqueness. Horst P. Horst’s “Classical Still-Life, New York” 1937 (lot 4175, 4,000 €) is indeed a classic, as well as “Carmen Face Massage, New York” 1946.

An attractive group of six signed, large-format Jeanloup Sieff prints (lot 4289, 4,000 €) are another. There are several intriguing “Lichtgraphiken” (light graphics) by Heinz Hajek-Halke and Kurt Wendlandt, a genre widely developed in Germany which involved working directly on the negative and not using a camera.

Contemporary photography is represented by a fine Nan Goldin print “Misty and Joey at Hornstrasse, Berlin” 1992 (lot 4151, 4,000 €) as well as by Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth and Lewis Baltz.

Other photographers include: Laure Albin-Guillot, Nobuyoshi Araki, Dimitri Baltermants, Max Baur, Ilse Bing, Günter Blum, Oliver Boberg, Edouard Boubat, Brassai, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paul Citroen, Lucien Clergue, Carlotta M. Corpron, Pasquale de Antonis, André de Dienes, Robert Doisneau, Frantisek Drtikol, Hugo Erfurth, Elliott Erwitt, Fritz Eschen, Walker Evans, Arno Fischer, Abe Frajndlich, Leonard Freed, Lee Friedlander, Rolf Gillhausen, Nan Goldin, Ara Güler, Robert Häusser, Heinz Hajek-Halke, Philippe Halsman, Heinrich Heidersberger, Konrad Helbig, Ken Heyman, Marta Hoepfner, Horst P. Horst, George Hurrell, Lotte Jacobi, Dan Kane, Peter Keetman, Edmund Kesting, Vincenzo Laera, Dorothea Lange, Lehnert & Landrock, Herbert List, Roxanne Lowit, Ulrich Mack, Man Ray, David McDermott and Peter McGouch, Leonard Misonne, Lucia Moholy, Wright Morris, Martin Munkacsi, NASA, Ben Magid Rabinovitch, Hans Rama, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Marcia Resnick, Heinrich Riebesehl, G.W. Ritchey, Willy Rizzo, Karin Rocholl, Alexander Rodchenko, Willy Ronis, Arthur Rothstein, Charlotte Rudolph, Michael Ruetz, Thomas Ruff, August Sander, Christian Schad, Michael Schmidt, Hugo Schmölz, Gundula Schulze Eldowy, Friedrich Seidenstücker, Hans Martin Sewcz, Cindy Sherman, Jeanloup Sieff, Aaron Siskind, Albert Steiner, Otto Steinert, Bert Stern, Herbert Strässer, Karl Struss, Thomas Struth, Josef Sudek, Antanas Sutkus, Karin Székessy, Maurice Tabard, Else Thiemann, Herbert Tobias, Walter Vogel, Weegee, Joel-Peter Witkin, Lothar Wolleh and Paul J. Woolf.

Also, included in the sale are photobooks by Karl Blossfeldt, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Larry Clark, Eikoh Hosoe, Danny Lyon, Paul Outerbridge, Edward Ruscha, Michael Schmidt, Wolfgang Schmidt, Kishin Shinoyama, Alec, Soth, Josef Sudek, Albrecht Tübke, Weegee, Brett Weston and Edward Weston.

Previewing for the auctions is: Monday, November 24-Monday to Saturday November 29, and Monday December 1, 10 am-6 pm (Closed Sunday) (CET), and Tuesday, December 2, 10 am-3 pm, as well as by appointment. Previewing is at: Bassenge Photography Dept., Rankestr. 24, ground floor, 10789 Berlin, Germany, Tel.: + 49 219 97 27. And the auctions are at: Bassenge, Erdener Str. 5a, 14193 Berlin, Tel. +49 30 893 80 29 0 on Wednesday, December 3rd at 3 pm.

For photography, contact: Jennifer Augustyniak at jennifer@bassenge.com; by phone at: + 49 30 219 97 277; fax: +49 30 219 97 105. Or the department can be generally reached at art@bassenge.com; +49 30 89380290.

The catalogue can be ordered from the department, or can be seen online. Bassenge's catalogue can be found at: http://www.bassenge.com/bassenge/en/lose.asp?c=P. Several language versions of the information, including English are available on the site.