Photography
Contact Donovan Rees
Fine photographs and photobooks with an emphasis on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We stock images by recognised masters such as Hill & Adamson, Roger Fenton or Julia Margaret Cameron as well as more eclectic examples illustrating the range of formats and processes used in the early years of the medium. This might include fine daguerreotypes, complete photograph albums, carbon or platinum prints by known or amateur photographers.
We are also interested in the work of early travel photographers, particularly those in the Middle and Far East. From later periods we hold work by British photographers specialising in fine art and documentary photography including Alvin Langdon Coburn, J. Dudley Johnston, Bill Brandt and Raymond Moore.
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VALENTINE, James (photographer).
Album of Scottish views, mainly of Stirling and surroundings.
Circa 1870s.
A handsome example of a topographical view album by the Scottish photographer James Valentine, focusing on Stirling and the surrounding areas.
£600
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THOMSON, John.
Illustrations of China and its People. A Series of two Hundred Photographs, with letterpress descriptive of the...
London, Sampson Low &c, 1873–1874.
A good copy of this rare work (vol. I marked second edition, the rest first editions), showing superb images of Imperial China including rare portraits of high government officials as well as a large number of architectural and scenic views; this item ranks amongst the most spectacular photographically...
£35000
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TAYLOR, G. Oswald (photographer).
Promotional photographic brochure celebrating the coronation of Elizabeth II.
Nottingham, Fine Stocking Manufacturers Ltd., June 1953.
An unusual coronation souvenir. The details on the lower wrapper indicate that Oswald Taylor produced the booklet, as well as photographed the series.
£300
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[TAHITI.]
Album of 21 silver gelatin prints relating to the construction of a new airport in Pape’ete.
1960.
Fa’a’a Airport, just outside Papa’ete on Tahiti is the only international airport in French Polynesia, built on reclaimed land on the coral reef off-shore. Its construction in 1958-60 was directly connected with the French government’s nuclear weapons testing programme in the region, but gave...
£875
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STIEGLITZ, Alfred, editor.
James Craig ANNAN, after David Octavius HILL and Robert ADAMSON. Camera Work. A Photographic Quarterly....
New York, A. Stieglitz, 1912.
The 1909 issue of Alfred Stieglitz’s seminal quarterly journal of photography, Camera Work, intended to establish photography as a fine art and called ‘by far the most beautiful of all photographic magazines’ (Whelan).
£2200
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[STEREOGRAPH.]
James ELLIOTT, photographer.
‘The first Love Letter’ [and] ‘Difference of Opinion’. London, 1860s.
Three hand-tinted albumen prints in stereo format featuring elaborate historical costumes, depicting the early stages of courtship and a lovers’ tiff.
£175
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[STEREOGRAPH.]
‘Going Out’ [and] ‘Coming In’.
London, Gebhardt, Rottmann & Co., [late 1850s or 1860s].
An amusing pair of stereos depicting the ‘before’ and ‘after’ a gentleman’s night out.
£70
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STACEY, George et al.
Daguerreotype and ambrotype portraits of Stacey and members of his family.
London, 1850s.
A handsome set of photographs of the English Quaker and abolitionist George Stacey (1787-1857), his second wife Mary née Barclay (1797-1876) and members of their extended family, taken by some of the finest portraitists in England at that time.
£7500
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SMITH, Hubert, and Thomas Charles BROMWICH, photographer.
A short Memoir of the late eminent Shropshire Genealogist...
Madeley (Shropshire), J. Randall, 1879.
First separate edition, photographically illustrated, of this short memoir of the Shropshire antiquary William Hardwicke.
£150
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[SHANGHAI.]
“So–this is Shanghai”.
[Shanghai, A. S. Watson & Co. and Kelly & Walsh, c. 1935.]
Rare first edition of a photographic souvenir book of Shanghai. The initial full-page topographical views of the city are followed by a series of smaller format ‘Studies of Chinese Life’, including street scenes and portraits.
£350
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RICCI, Giovanni and PORTA, Ercolano.
Storia della missione francescana e del Vicariato Apostolico del Hunan meridionale dalle sue...
Bologna, Stabilimenti tipografici riuniti, 1925.
First and only edition of this history of the Franciscan Mission in South Hunan from its establishment to 1924, with particular attention to the persecution of the Christians during the Boxer Rebellion and the following years of restoration and progress of the mission. The appendix comprises letters,...
£450
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PURSEY, Thomas.
The last General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland.
[Edinburgh, T. Pursey, 1900.]
A photographic tour-de-force, assembling many hundreds of individual photographic portraits neatly incorporated into a painted scenario, and then reproduced as a photogravure, depicting all the attendees of the last General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, held in May 1900. Evidently a...
£2000
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PIECK, Henri C.
10 Dagen Die De Wereld Deden Wankelen.
Amsterdam, Skovino, 1927.
A rare lithograph of Pieck’s dramatic illustration for Ten Days that Shook the World (October in English), a silent film commissioned by the Soviet government to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the October Revolution. Made by the director of Battleship Potemkin (1925), Sergei Eisenstein, the...
£300
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PENN, Christopher.
The Nicholas Brothers & A. T. W. Penn: photographers of South India 1855 – 1885. With a foreword by John Falconer.
London, Bernard Quaritch Ltd, 2014.
An examination of the successful studios established by John and James Perratt Nicholas and Albert Penn in Madras and Ootacamund. The majority of the photographs are published here for the first time. Also includes a copy of the scarce Nicholas & Co. 1881 catalogue listing over 450 subjects.
£45
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NISSEN, Peter.
‘Carl Hagenbeck’s Zoologischer Circus’
c. 1891.
A rare portfolio of live animal scenes from Carl Hagenbeck’s famous ‘zoological circus’; a wonderful hybrid of the real and the surreal in zoological and photographic history.
£12000
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MENNIE, Donald.
Glimpses of China. A Series of Vandyck photogravures illustrating Chinese life and surroundings. Shanghai, A. S.
Watson & Co. Ltd, [1920?].
First edition, scarce, with thirty images taken across China. Some of the captions are descriptive, but others, in keeping with the pictorialist aspects of Mennie’s photographic practice, are poetic – “Where peace and calm contentment dwell serene”, “Some dim pavilion where my lady dreams”...
£1200
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MANTELL, A. M. (attr.).
Views in North Wales.
Circa 1880.
A magnificent album of large-format views of North Wales and Chester, likely produced in celebration of the new harbour and hotel at Holyhead, which was opened by Edward, Prince of Wales in June 1880 – a group portrait of the event is depicted here.
£6500
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[LUYNES, Honoré Théodore Paul Joseph d’Albert, duc de.] VIGNES, Louis, photographer; Charles NEGRES, printer.
Voyage d’exploration à la mer Morte, à Petra et sur la rive gauche du Jourdain par M. Le Duc de Luynes,...
Printed 1874–76.
A fine set of the photogravures for which Nègre was justly celebrated, from the collection of Marie-Thérèse and André Jammes. The titles and plate numbers are added in pencil, likely by the author or publisher (Arthus Bertrand, Paris, 1874-76). The albumen prints, from the original negatives...
£25000