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

Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. Philadelphia: Gutekunst, April or May 1865

This impressive full-length portrait of Grant in uniform was made at war’s end to capture the triumphal hero at the height of his powers. This portrait shows Grant emulating the pose of Napoleon in David’s famous Napoleon in his Study (1812), a pose favored in military portraits of the time.

$9,500

Maj. Gen. Abner Doubleday. No place, 1860s

This is a rare large format portrait of the famed general Abner Doubleday. Doubleday played a prominent role in the Union Army from the war’s outset. He was was second in command at Fort Sumter when the war started. He later commanded a division at Antietam, Gettysburg and other major battles.

$9,500

Album containing 80 tintype portraits of women and girls. American, 1860s-1880s

This fascinating album contains 80 tintype portraits of women and girls, young and old. Some are dressed plainly, while others are in fine dresses, and at least one is in mourning attire. The photographs head and shoulders, seated, and full-length standing portraits.

$9,500

Signed photograph of Watson and Crick with their three-dimensional model of the double-helix DNA molecule. Anthony Barrington, 1953, printed later

Signed by Watson and Crick in the white lower margin. The discovery of the structure of DNA was the cornerstone event in modern genetics and biology and one of the greatest scientific discoveries of all time.

$9,500

Two 16 mm films of the first Russian and the first American to walk in space. No place, 1965

Films of the space walks of Aleksei Leonov and Edward White.

$9,500

Opening day of the Suez Canal. Port Said , Nov. 16, 1869

This photograph depicts the harbor and canal on the day of the opening of the Suez Canal, the “greatest engineering feat of the nineteenth century” (Smith). “Clearly, the canal’s opening festivities placed Egypt in a new way on the European cultural map” (Haddad, “Digging to India: Modernity, Imperialism, and the Suez Canal”).

$8,500

Panoramic Photograph of Cairo.. Cairo, 1870s

This splendid and unusually large panoramic photograph

$8,500

Marble column being carried on a cart to the Capitol. Washington, 1860

This rare salt print shows a colossal marble column being carried to the Capitol during its construction. The enormous cart is being drawn by team of twelve or more horses.

$7,500

Bust portrait of Whitman wearing a hat. New York, 1878

Boldly signed and dated 1879 by Whitman. Whitman observed of this delightful portrait, “It is one of my good-humored pictures. … This is strong enough to be right and gentle enough to be right, too: I like to be both: I wouldn’t like people to say ‘he is a giant’ and then forget I know how to love.”

$7,200