Large Format Camera from Mathew Brady’s Studio. New York, c. 1850s

A major relic of photographic history, this camera was owned by Mathew Brady during his years as the leading figure in American photography. Brady was the preeminent American portrait photographer of his day. He gained his greatest fame with his studio’s documentation of the events and figures of the Civil War. This camera’s association with Brady and his studio, which produced hundreds of iconic portraits and thousands of Civil War photographs, makes it an important historical artifact.

$250,000

The Taber Photographic Album of Principal Business Houses, Residences and Persons. San Francisco: Taber, 1880

The Taber Photographic Album is the most important photographically illustrated book of 19th-century American business and commerce. This remarkable volume presents a dazzling overview of the businesses, trade, and commercial culture of San Francisco in 1880. Taber was the most successful photographer of 19th-century California, and this work demonstrates his genius for creating compelling images and his shrewd marketing.

$185,000

Ambrotype Portrait of John D. Rockefeller. Cleveland, Ohio: Wiliam C. North, c. 1857-1858

This famous portrait of John D. Rockefeller at age 18 is the earliest known photograph of the greatest titan of American business and industry.

$150,000

Photograph inscribed and signed by Albert Einstein. [Berlin], 1927

Albert Einstein on the Jewish people: “we Jews are not a chosen people, but one that has been strained and steeled by millennia of pressure.” On this dramatic portrait of Einstein at age 48, made at the height of his fame, the scientist writes:

$110,000

Mammoth Portrait of Abraham Lincoln. Washington, November 8, 1863

A classic mammoth portrait of Abraham Lincoln, showing the President just days before he delivered the Gettysburg Address.

$95,000

An extraordinary collection of 26 photographic portraits of leading photographers. Various processes, 1850s-1890s

This superb collection of photographs of photographers documents the spread of photography from its inventor Daguerre through the art’s earliest practitioners in the United States and ultimately to the great photographers of the Civil War and the American West.

$75,000

Ulysses S. Grant. Washington, 1865

Albumen print (6 1⁄2 x 4 1⁄4 in.), cabinet card mount. Some minor wear to bottom edge. Fine condition. .

$52,000

Portrait of Charles Darwin, signed by Darwin and by Cameron. Cameron, [1868]

THE ICONIC PORTRAIT OF CHARLES DARWIN, boldly signed by Charles Darwin and by Julia Margaret Cameron.

$52,000

Daguerreotype Portrait of Baltus Stone. [Philadelphia], 1846

This remarkable portrait of Revolutionary War veteran Baltus Stone is one of the very few daguerreotypes of a person who had lived in colonial America.

$50,000

Collection of Photographs of Abraham Lincoln’s Cabinet: a “Team of Rivals”. New York and Washington: Brady Studio, c. 1860

This is a splendid collection of Brady Imperial portraits of Lincoln’s most important cabinet members, the famed “Team of Rivals.”

Four photographs as a collection: $45,000