Early Photography of China Collection: A highly important collection in development.. Various places, 1850s-1930s

The most valuable collection of early China photography in private hands, the Early Photography of China Collection includes the greatest masterworks of China photography by the foremost photographers working in China in the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the 20th century. The collection has been assembled over the course of many years, and we continue to expand and refine it as worthy photographs and archives become available. This collection, unrivaled in quality and extent in private hands, provides a unique opportunity to own one of the greatest collections of Chinese photography extant. We are eager to acquire important China photographs, from individual objects to albums and collections. We invite you to contact us.

Collection in development

FDR Funeral 1945. [Published in LIFE], taken in 1945, printed later

Signed and inscribed by the photographer: “FDR Funeral 1945, Edward Clark, Life.” Famed Life photographer Edward Clark took this celebrated picture in 1945 at the funeral of Franklin D. Roosevelt in Atlanta.

$4,200

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

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

Photographic portrait inscribed by Whitman with four lines from “Salut au Monde!”. Toronto: Edy Brothers, 1880

A rare portrait with a Leaves of Grass quotation in Whitman’s hand. The photogenic and self-promoting poet sat for (and gave away) many photographs, but very
rarely did he inscribe them with his verse. Here he writes lines from his poem “Salut au Monde!”—his “calling card to the world, as well as one of his most successful compositions.”

$75,000

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

King of Siam’s State Barge. Bangkok, c. 1865

This is a magnificent two-panel view of the king’s barge on the water, with dozens of oarsmen ready to put their paddles in to the water. The king’s ornate covered throne is at the rear of the vessel. The riverbank in the background is crowded with low thatched roof buildings.

$15,000

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

An extraordinary collection of photographs of Central Park by its first official photographer. New York, 1862

Pioneering photographs of Central Park. One of the earliest photographers to work in New York

$135,000

The Original Big Tree, 32 feet diameter. Charles Weed, 1864

Mammoth albumen print (15 ½ x 20 in.), mounted.

$37,500