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

Profile bust portrait of Charles Darwin, signed by Cameron. London: Colnaghi, 1868

The great Darwin portrait, Julia Margaret Cameron’s 1868 profile of Darwin is probably the most famous photograph of a 19th-century scientist. Darwin remarked, “I like this photograph very much better than any other which has been taken of me.”

$52,000

Abraham Lincoln delivering his Second Inaugural Address. Washington, March 4, 1865

Lincoln delivers his Second Inaugural Address, one of the most historic photographs of the 19^th century. This famous image shows Lincoln in the act of delivering the address on the east portico of the United States Capitol on March 4, 1865.

$38,000

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

$38,000

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

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

$37,500

Original glass plate interpositive prepared by Curtis for the printing of The North American Indian. Curtis, 1924

This is a splendid original glass plate made for Edward Curtis’s The North American Indian, the greatest photographic work on Native Americans. Curtis, one of the greatest American artists of his era, was the most celebrated photographer of North American Indians.

$35,000

32 Fort Laramie Treaty Photographs. Fort Laramie, Wyoming Territory, 1868

This landmark series of Alexander Gardner photographs documents the Fort Laramie Treaty conference. The Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1868 guaranteed the Lakota ownership of the Black Hills in the Wyoming Territory. The treaty was signed by U.S. officials and representatives of the Arapaho, Northern Cheyenne, Crow, and the Brule, Oglala and Miniconjou Dakota. Intended to stop Indian hostilities against white settlers and miners traveling the Bozeman Trail, the treaty ended Red Cloud’s War.

$32,000

Armstrong and Aldrin raising the U.S. flag on the Moon’s surface. NASA, [1969]

Signed by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, the first two men on the Moon. This image was taken by the Maurer Data Acquisition Camera (DAC, pronounced “dak”). The DAC made films through the Lunar Module Pilot’s window during the approach and landing of the LM and took stop motion photographs during the EVA at the rate of one frame per second.

$32,000

Abraham Lincoln. Washington, November 8, 1863

This famous “Gettysburg portrait,” with Lincoln looking directly into the camera, was made just days before he delivered the Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863.

$32,000

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