E-Photo
Issue #94  10/4/2005
 
Online Photography Week Auctions End October 12 & 13

Capitol Gallery and Christopher Wahren Fine Photographs are again holding an Online Photography Week, with sales to end on Wednesday and Thursday, October 12th and 13th. The two companies combine many years experience in the field and their two catalog and online sales of Online Photography Week offer a fresh selection of collectible photography, much of it new to market, with particular strength in work by photographers of the Daguerreian era.

The Capitol Gallery sale (closing October 12th) features several noteworthy cased images. Daguerreotypes include an important plate showing a fraternal Odd Fellow in full regalia and holding a large ceremonial ax, and a quarter-plate daguerreotype of a country boy in rustic clothing hugging his dog. The huge dog is secured by a long, tenuously thin rope, and this impromptu plate captures the folksy atmosphere for which Capitol Gallery is well known. Also offered is an extremely rare Daguerreian coloring kit and an identified half-plate ambrotype of a fireman by W. C. North. Further cased images include a three-quarter-plate daguerreotype of children with a hoop; a rare, albeit bruised, Mississippi half-plate of two women in fancy costume; photographic jewelry; an Irishman and hand-tinted Scotsman; a gambler; and additional dog images.

Capitol Gallery's selection of Daguerreian cases includes a lovely all mother-of-pearl case, a geometric full-plate case along with its original contents (a knife set!), and the family/accordion case. In paper photography there are additional lots with fraternal images, children with toys and occupational photographs.

Further information about the sale and placing bids can be obtained online at http://capitolgallery.com or by calling Kevin and Karen Kunz at 1-217-546-4654; email: capitolgallery@sbcglobal.net . A print catalog is available for $15 within the USA.

The Skylight Gallery #21 sale (closing October 13th) offers a lovely child study by the daguerreotypists Southworth and Hawes. Also included are an unusual daguerreotype of a English gentleman with an electrical coil, a quarter-plate image of a California Gold-Rush miner and an evocative pair of daguerreotypes circa 1849 showing children doing sums on a slate, in period gilt mount and with an inscription on reverse relating to a cholera epidemic. Other vintage daguerreotypes show children crawling, sleeping, snuggling, and holding toys. Examples of the ambrotype process include men drinking and smoking, an unusual view of a bare-chested man with blind eye, perhaps war-related and a very rare American ambrotype of a Chinese woman in traditional costume, possibly a California immigrant. Also noteworthy are a poetic ambrotype of bridge construction against the backdrop of a country landscape and an uncommon plate of a woman with fiddle from the pre-statehood Kansas Territory.

A selection of Japanese images in the Skylight Gallery is unusual, including four ambrotypes from Japan as well as a selection of Japanese albumen prints and two beautiful Japanese floral studies in albumen. Paper photography includes a grouping of portraits of Corot, Daumier and other French artists. Cartes-de-viste include a dog, cats, images of Chile, Peru and General U.S. Grant's partially smoked cigar. In line with its policy of avoiding "been there, done that" offerings by bringing something new to the table, the Skylight Gallery sale concludes with contemporary alternative process work, modern daguerreotypes including a becquerel-process Daguerreian photogram by Lori Oden, a view of storm clouds above the World Trade Center by Jerry Spagnoli and a hand-colored "Homage to Daguerre" by Mike Robinson.

Further information about the Skylight Gallery sale and placing bids can be obtained online at http://cwfp.biz/sg21 or by contacting Christopher Wahren at 1-203-772-3968. A print catalog is available for $15 within the USA.