Collection of Ten Photographs from Mooney’s Pioneering Investigations of the Ghost Dance and Other Native American Circle Dances. Various places, c. 1892-93

The rare and important collection documents the famous Ghost Dance and related circle dances soon after Wounded Knee. The collection testifies to the tragic demise of the Native American spiritual and cultural practices during the tumultuous Ghost Dance period. These photographs were taken by James Mooney (1861-1921), an anthropologist with the Bureau of American Ethnology. He left Washington in late 1890 to investigate the potentially incendiary Ghost Dance movement. Mooney’s rare portrait of Wovoka is one highlight of the collection. Mooney’s Ghost Dance photographs are of the greatest rarity in the market. We can trace no others having appeared for sale.

$20,000

Photographic album of Gothic architecture and proposed designs for the Royal Courts of Justice, London. Various places, 1868-70

This splendid album contains 120 fine medium and large format photographs of Gothic and High Victorian Gothic architecture.

$12,000

View of Rome from the Tiber River with Castel Sant’Angelo and Saint Peter’s Basilica. Rome, ca. 1870

$4,500

Great Salt Lake City, Wasatch Mts. Salt Lake City, 1869

This is a splendid print of this classic Jackson view of Salt Lake City.

$16,000

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

$38,000

United States Capitol. no publisher, c. 1870

This dramatic photograph of the United States Capitol shows the building in the 1870s, after the completion of the new dome and the extensions.

$2,500

Collection of 23 Great Baltimore Fire photographs. Baltimore, 1904

The Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 destroyed 1500 buildings and damaged another 1000, bringing property loss from the disaster to an estimated $100 million. It remains the third most devastating fire in the United States history, surprised only by Chicago (1871) and San Francisco (1906). This remarkable series of photographs documents the destruction. In many photographs people stand on the street surveying the destruction, sometimes with water still trained on the smoldering ruins.

$1,800

Vietnamese Musicians. Saigon, c. late 1860s

The French photographer Émile Gsell became the first commercial photographer based in Saigon following his first expedition to photograph Angkor in 1866.

$1,500

Two photographs: Kutub Minar & Great Arch. Delhi, c. 1866. [and] Great Arch and Iron Pillar. Delhi, 1866

This is a splendid pair of Samuel Bourne views of the Qutb complex in Delhi.

$2,800

Sentinel Rock, 3270 Feet High. San Francisco, 1864

This spectacular view shows Sentinel Rock towering above a rider on horseback in a well-lit clearing.

$25,000