Magnificent Album of Mammoth Photographs of the American West, with other subjects. various, ca. 1865-1880s

This magnificent American West photograph album contains an astounding 21 mammoth photographs by leading photographers including Carleton Watkins, Charles R. Savage, and Isaiah West Taber, as well as other important photographs.

$350,000

Photographs of the Holy Land and Egypt comprising: [I:] Sinai and Palestine; [II:] Lower Egypt, Thebes, and the Pyramids; [III:] Upper Egypt and Ethiopia; [IV:] Egypt, Sinai and Palestine. Supplementary Volume.. London, Glasgow, and Edinburgh:  William MacKenzie, [1863].

$72,000

Ink and wash drawings of Jewish subjects and of musical instruments, Signed by Daguerre. “Dessiné le 12 Novembre 1822 LJM Daguerre.”, 1822

$38,000

A collection of images associated with South Carolina physician and plantation owner Sidney Smith. South Carolina, 1845-50

A unique survival. This important collection of largely identified photographs documents the home and family of Dr. Sidney Smith and those he enslaved at Gravel Hill, his South Carolina plantation. The collection includes an extraordinary daguerreotype depicting Dr. Smith, his two daughters, and his brother, posed together with two enslaved African American men. This is one of the earliest known images—if not the very earliest photograph—of an identified plantation owner posing with enslaved African Americans.

$60,000

Daguerreotype portrait of John Romeyn Brodhead. London: Mayall, 1848

A splendid half-plate daguerreotype of Herman Melville’s advisor and agent John Brodhead, scholar and diplomat.

John Romeyn Brodhead (1814-1873) was a historian and a member of the American diplomatic corps. Best remembered for his services as Herman Melville’s agent in London, Brodhead had known Melville and his family since their youth.

$15,000

Henry Clay, half plate daguerreotype. [Philadelphia], c. 1848

A classic, characteristic portrait of Henry Clay, the “Great Compromiser,” a dominant force in American politics for decades.

$32,000

Calotype of Water Tower. Philadelphia, 1849

This important survival of American photographic history is a very early calotype of a water tower in Philadelphia. Paper photography from this era is a rarity and the image was created by two of America’s great photographic pioneers, the Langenheim brothers.

$11,000

Portrait Miniature of George and Martha Washington. American, 19th century

$2,200

Michael Faraday. Ipswich, [1851]

This is a rare early state or proof copy of this lovely portrait of Michael Faraday, the greatest figure in the history of elecromagnetism.

$2,800

Harriet Beecher Stowe. Boston, 1853

This is a fine salt print portrait of Harriet Beecher Stowe by John A. Whipple, a leading early American portrait photographer.

$25,000