Search Results: Photograph - Original from Downtown Brown Books, ABAA

Crannell, CA: Little River Redwood Company, 1930. Photograph. Fine. Fourteen 5-by-7-inch sepia-tone photographs documenting logging operations in a long-gone company town in the redwood forest north of Eureka, on the California coast. Two of the images show logging camps (Camps 7 and 8); one shows a logging railroad; the rest depict scenes in the forest during the handsaw era. These images are most often seen as postcards notifying buyers that their orders from Little River Redwood Company had been placed on railcars. These larger-format images are quite uncommon. The Little River Redwood Company began operation at Crannell about 1908 and continued until the 1950s. The town was razed in 1969. Logging operations in Crannell shut Two of the views show logging camps (Camps 7 and 8); a third shows a logging railroad. The images do not have a photographer's name; attribution to Dold and Dold based on cataloguing of images from this set hed at Humboldt State University, relying on information from the… Read More

(Paris): Achille Quinet, 1870. Photograph. Fine. A set of 27 cabinet cards measuring 6-3/8 by 4-1/4 (16.2 by 10.8 cm), with images slightly smaller. The sepia-tone albumen photographs depict architectural scenes in Paris and the surrounding areas. The images, most titled in the negative and a few on the mount, include Place de la Concorde; Chateau de Fontainebleau; Palais des Tuileries; Notre-Dame; Tour St. Jacques; and Eglise de la Trinité. Quinet (1831-1900) was a photographer and inventor-he patented the Quinetoscope, the first twin-lens stereoview camera, and he developed the first vertical photograph enlarger. This collection is an example of his commercial work, photographs of Paris buildings and monuments. Quinet was a member of the Sociéte Française de Photographie from 1876 to 1894, and he exhibited his work at the Universal Exposition of 1878. One image has small areas of loss; the rest are fine or nearly so.

San Francisco: Taber Photo, 1880. Ephemera. Near fine. An imperial plate (8-1/2 by 12-1/2 inches) portrait of Galen Clark holding a rifle and standing in front of one of the first famous trees from the Yosemite area. Watkins took this image in 1865 or 1866, during one of his extended trips to Yosemite. It was printed by Isaiah Taber from the original negative, after Taber took over Watkins's bankrupt photo studio. The Getty owns a copy of this image and it is very similar to one of Watkins's mammoth-plate images (Naef and Hult-Lewis, Carleton Watkins: The Complete Mammoth Photographs, no. 104). While it is generally known that Watkins regularly took his 18-by-22-inch mammoth glass-plate camera and a stereoview camera to Yosemite, the existence of imperial plate photographs suggests he took a third camera with him on his trips. Amy S. Doherty ("Carleton E. Watkins, Photographer: 1829-1916" in the Syracuse University Courier vol. 15, no. 4, 1978) proposed this idea based on an examination of a bound… Read More

1898. Ephemera. Near fine. A remarkable series of uniform images of Wykoff, Minnesota, taken in 1898, documenting 35 commercial buildings (plus two interior views), with the inhabitants standing in front of the structure. This series includes all but two buildings on the 100 block of North Gold Street, now on the National Register of Historic Places. The remaining views include churches, the public hall, free-standing wood-frame structures on adjacent streets, and more industrial buildings, like the livery and stables, a lumber yard, a wagon and carriage shop, a blacksmith shop, an unidentified four-story factory, etc. These images offer a seldom-seen view of the commercial buildings of a small town at the end of the 19th century and offer insight into the number, gender, ages of the owners, employees, and residents of the structures. Based on Wykoff's application to the National Register of Historic Places, this set of images includes 14 of the 16 buildings on the 100 block of North Gold Street,… Read More

New York: Dana, 1895. Ephemera. Very good. A head-and-shoulder's portrait of the novelist Amelia E. Barr (1831-1919), the author of some 80 books in the late 19th and early 20th century. Barr, née Huddleston, was born in Lancashire, England, and emigrated to the US in 1853. Her first novel was published in 1872. Image, roughly 4 by 5-3/4 inches, on a larger card mount. The back (verso) of the mount promotes the photography technique used, "Carbonette Our 1895 production." A very good contrast image, with dark charcoal tones. The mount has notes in color and regular pencil on the lower front margin as well as various notes on the back (verso).

Los Angeles: Putnam and Valentine, 1900. Ephemera. Very good. A gelatin silver print photograph showing a Pima (probably) woman kneeling on the ground with a basket on her lap. Behind her sits a young child, with the door of a wickiup dwelling in the background. She is surrounded by basket-making supplies, laying on cloth blankets, in finished baskets, and in metal tins. The woman and her child are wearing print dresses. This is an attractive image, printed in the center of a paper sheet, with a decorative photographic vignette of cactus-filled landscape at the lower right corner. Image: 8 by 4-1/2 inches; sheet: 13-1/4 by 8-1/4 inches. Marked "Copyright 1900 (?) By A. Putnam." Putnam (1870-1949). Arion worked for his father John R. Putnam and Carlton Valentine, the owners of Putnam and Valentine, a prominent Los Angeles photography studio from the 1890s into the twentieth century. For a time, Arion was a photographer for the Southern Pacific and he may have made this image while touring the… Read More

Arcata, CA: Ericson Bro's, 1896. Photograph. Good. Image of three ships, the Defender (launched late August 1896; see Wallace Martin, Sail and Steam, page 264) completed or nearly so, with two other ships under construction. 9.5 by 7.5 inches on a 14 by 11 inch mount. Ornate printed title using left-leaning script font. Plain back. Image faded, short crack in bottom of mount.

Edinburgh: Ross & Pringle, 1870. Ephemera. Very good. A commercial studio portrait of two Newhaven fish wives, the women who gutted and prepared fish and hauled the results to market in the village of Newhaven, just north of Edinburgh. The fish women were popular subjects for painters and photographers because of their distinctive vertically striped dresses. This image shows one woman offering a platter of fish to another woman, who is holding a fish in both hands, closely inspecting one of them. A basket of fish is on the ground between them. The photographers Ross & Pringle operated as a partnership from 1867 to 1875 at the 114 George Street address printed on the back (verso) of the mount (per the Edinphoto website). Occupational carte de visite photograph; image, 2-3/16 by 3-11/16 inches. Thin card mount, 2-7/16 by 4-3/16 inches, with photographer's mark on the back. Caption stamped below image on front (recto) of mount. A very good image with a bit of spotting in the print. Good contrast… Read More

Leslie, Fife: W. T. Turner, 1870. Ephemera. Near fine. A portrait of two unidentified women holding strands of yarn. They are wearing distinctive uniforms of thick gathered skirt over a second, stiff, horizontally pleated skirt; a tunic over a blouse, and a flat cloth head covering that seems to tie in a large bow around their necks. On the back (verso) of the mount someone has written in pencil, "Wool Bleachers in Scotland." Based on the location of the photographer and other photographs of 19th century bleachworks, it seems more likely that these women worked in a linen factory. A scarce image of women workers in the third quarter of the 19th century. Occupational carte de visite photograph; image, 2-3/8 by 3-9/16 inches. Thin card mount, 2-1/2 by 4 inches, with photographer's printed mark on the back. Near fine. Medium contrast image.

Wooster and Ashland, Ohio: Teeple, 1880. Ephemera. Near fine. A carte de visite image of a man and a woman, possibly Egyptian, possibly a pregnant woman and her husband. The woman wears a long white veil that extends almost to the ground. Her hands are crossed over her stomach. The man, wearing a fez, stands next to her, holding a document in his left hand. Most likely, this is a copy print as there is a narrow dark band along the bottom of the image, which is typical of imperfectly produced copy photographs. Albumen silver print, 2-1/4 by 3-7/8 inches, on a stiff card mount with a decorative Teeple Photography design on the verso (back). An attractive photograph, with good tones, perhaps a touch over exposed as some detail is lost in the white areas.

Detroit: Randall, Photographer, 1881. Ephemera. Very good. A full-length cabinet card portrait of Sojourner Truth with the caption, "I sell the shadow to support the substance." This is one of Truth's last portraits, taken when she was in her eighties and purchased in bulk to sell at events, hence the caption. During the Civil War, Truth took the unusual step of acquiring the copyright to her portrait, giving her control over both the distribution of her image and the money it generated. The verso (back) of the mount of this photograph includes Truth's copyright statement. Truth (1797-1883), born Isabella Baumfree, was one of the best-known abolitionists and women's rights advocates of the 19th century. She traveled the country for decades giving talks and attending conferences, selling her photographs-her "shadow"-as a primary means of support. The art professor Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby has published an extensive study of Truth's photographs (Enduring Truths, 2015). Based on Grigsby's research into… Read More

1980. An original black-and-white gelatin silver print photograph of Audre Lorde speaking, pictured in three-quarters profile. Lorde (1934-1992) is an influential and popular writer, a self-described, "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet." The image is inscribed on the back (verso) and signed "Audrey Lorde." Printed on 8 by 10 inch Kodak paper, with the image slightly smaller. The photographer is not identified. The photograph is fine; the signature is a bit faint and hard to read. It says "For ___-and his ___ Audrey Lorde.

Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1980. Photograph. Fine. In this Lange image, a man and woman, both African American, stand in a field holding hoes or other farming implements. Lange took this image while working for the Resettlement Administration and the Farm Security Administration (two WPA agencies). The most famous image from this period in her career is Migrant Mother, the iconic Depression-era photograph. Lange's images from this era often have descriptive names rather than titles, and they have changed over time. This one is called "Cotton Sharecroppers"... on the Library of Congress website; "Greene County, Georgia" is written in pencil on the back (verso) of this photograph. At the time she took this photograph, Lange was working for the federal government and so the negatives belonged to her employer. For decades they have been on deposit at the Library of Congress and for many years, anyone could ask the library to make prints from the negatives. In this case, the negative (as… Read More

Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1980. Photograph. Near fine. One of Lange's powerful portraits of destitute farmworkers taken in California in 1936 while she was working for the Resettlement Administration and the Farm Security Administration (two WPA agencies). The most famous image from this period in her career is Migrant Mother, the iconic Depression-era photograph. This image shows Jess Power with his wife Zella (McCann) Power and baby Jesse Power. They were camped in Riverside County, in Southern California, when Lange came upon them. They were three of the Okies, fleeing from the Dust Bowl conditions in Oklahoma, the story told in words by John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath. At the time she took this photograph, Lange was working for the federal government and so the negatives belonged to her employer. For decades they have been on deposit at the Library of Congress and for many years, anyone could ask the library to make prints, directly from Lange's original negatives. This is one… Read More

[New York?]: [Best Manufacturing], 1885. Near fine. A stereoview of the Everett Hotel in Jacksonville, Florida. This is no. 1336 in the "B" Series, a vast collection of pirated views issued by an East Coast firm with many locations. This view is a single photograph, almost certainly a copy print of another photographer's work. Near fine. Medium contrast; curved back. The image is badly centered, with the right side wider than the left.

[San Francisco]: [Probably Taber Photo], 1880. Ephemera. Near fine. An imperial plate (8-1/2 by 12-1/2 inches) image of the El Capitan, one of the best-known rock formations in the Yosemite Valley. Watkins made at least five mammoth-plate images from this vantage point over a period of at least 20 years. Watkins took this image between 1878 and 1881. It may have been printed by Isaiah Taber, after Taber took over Watkins's bankrupt photo studio. However, it does not have the Taber imprint but the mount matches another Yosemite image with Taber's logo in the negative. This view is very similar to one of Watkins's mammoth-plate images (Naef and Hult-Lewis, Carleton Watkins: The Complete Mammoth Photographs, no. 136) and was almost certainly taken at the same time. It is easily distinguishable from images taken at another time because this image and the corresponding mammoth-plate view have a white reflection of the mountain in the water in the foreground. In addition to the albumen print offered… Read More

Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1980. Photograph. Fine. A copy print, made from a photograph of the original print (see below). In this Lange image, six people wearing long shirts and hats are bent over at the waist tending to rows of lettuce. A dried and cracked furrow fills the left foreground. Lange took this image while working for the Resettlement Administration and the Farm Security Administration (two WPA agencies). The most famous image from this period in her career is Migrant Mother, the iconic Depression-era photograph. Lange's images from this era often have descriptive names rather than titles, and they have changed over time. This one is called Filipinos Cutting Lettuce on the Library of Congress website; Filipinos Working Lettuce Fields is written in pencil on the back (verso) of this photograph. At the time she took this photograph, Lange was working for the federal government and so the negatives belonged to her employer. For decades they have been on deposit at the Library… Read More

1895. Five views of Lake Worth Beach and Palm Beach in 1895. The images are: 1) Ferry at Lake Worth with the Royal Poinciana Hotel in the distance. Captioned in the negative, "L.W.B. 9.14.95"; 2) Lake Worth with the Royal Poinciana Hotel in the distance. Captioned in the negative, "L.W.B. 9.24.95"; 3) View of Lake Worth with a pier in the foreground, possibly taken from a boat. Captioned in the negative, "L.W.B. 10.9.95"; 4) Sail boat in front of the Royal Poinciana, captioned in the negative, "Lake Worth" (two versions, with different exposure times) 5) View of the Palm Beach Inn (?), later renamed The Breakers, under construction with the Royal Poinciana in the background (not dated, but the hotel opened in December 1895). The negatives these views were printed from are of somewhat unusual size, measuring roughly 4-3/4 by 7-3/4 inches. All but one view have a horizontal orientation. Given that this size does not seem to conform to the standard halfplate negative (usually 5-1/2 to 6-1/2 inches in… Read More

1900. Ephemera. Very good. A mounted half-length portrait photograph of Cuban independence leader Gonzalo de Quesada (1868-1915). Quesada came to the US with his parents as a boy. He grew up in New York City, obtained a law degree from New York University, and became friends with José Martí. With Martí he advocated for Cuban independence and was a member of the constitutional convention. He served as Cuban ambassador to the US and then to Germany. He died in Berlin during the First World War. Martí entrusted Quesada with his literary legacy, and Quesada edited the first volumes of Martí's collected works. 3-13/16 by 5-7/16 inches. A high-contrast silver gelatin print on photographic paper mounted to cardstock (mount trimmed near edges of the print). There were some imperfections in the negative emulsion causing spotting to Quesada's jacket and to his hair. Nothing affects his marvelous mustache. The image has the number 1927 on the front and back of the mount, which may be a date or an ID… Read More

San Francisco: Editions One, 1996. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. Introduction by Weston Naef. Black-and-white photos of the female nude form, with a few images that are not of white models (for once). This is one of 300 copies of the "gallery edition", each of which was signed and numbered by the photographer, with an original 8-by-10-inch signed print laid in. First edition (first printing). Copy 51 of 300, signed by the photographer. The original photograph, laid in at the front, is also signed by Carter and has a matching number. In the original clamshell box, which is a bit dusty.