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.

  1. ANNAN, Thomas.

    Memorials of the Old College of Glasgow.

    Glasgow, T. Annan Photographer; J. Maclehose, Publisher and Bookseller to the University, 1871

    A very good copy illustrated with albumen rather than carbon prints.

    £3450

  2. BENNETT, Terry.

    History of Photography in China: Chinese Photographers 1844-1879.

    London, Quaritch, 2013.

    This book is the first extensive survey of early Chinese photographers in any language. It is profusely illustrated with more than 400 photographs, many of which are published here for the first time, including a fine selection of Foochow landscapes from the studios of Lai Fong, China’s leading...

    £80

  3. BENNETT, Terry.

    History of Photography in China.

    London, Quaritch, 2009-2013.

    First editions of the three-volume set of Bennett’s comprehensive History of Photography in China, together providing a study and survey of the development of Chinese photography from 1842 to 1879 both by Chinese and by Western photographers. The work examines photographs and photographers...

    £175

  4. BISSON, Louis-Auguste. 

    ‘Wildfire’. 

    Paris, c. 1844. 

    An extraordinary equine portrait, testimony to the improvements made in the daguerreotype process made by Louis-August Bisson which allowed greater spontaneity through shorter exposure times. 

    £14500

  5. [DAGUERRE.] MAYER & PIERSON [after Charles Richard MEADE.]

    Carte-de-visite albumen print portrait of Louis Daguerre.

    Paris, late 1860s.

    In 1848 the pioneering American photographer Charles Richard Meade secured the commission for which he is now best known, a series of daguerrotypes of the medium’s founding father Louis Jaques Mandé Daguerre. The five images, known as the white-tie series to distinguish them from other portraits,...

    £1200

  6. DALLMEYER, Thomas.

    Telephotography: An elementary Treatise on the Construction and Application of the telephotographic Lens …...

    London, William Heinemann, 1899.

    First edition of the authoritative treatise on telephotography by the inventor of the first practical telephotographic lens.

    £200

  7. DURHAM, Arthur E. 

    Transverse Section of Wood (Salisburia). 

    Circa 1870s. 

    A rare and attractive microphotograph of a transverse section of Ginkgo biloba wood, traditionally used in Chinese medicine and homeopathy. 

    £1100

  8. [ELIZABETH II.] KEYSTONE (PARIS).

    La Princesse Elisabeth fille du Duc d’York, et héritier, du trône d’Angleterre …

    1936.

    Princess Elizabeth on the day of the announcement of the abdication of Edward VII.

    £1200

  9. [FARSARI, Adolfo, Studio of.]

    Japanese flower seller.

    [Yokohama?, c. 1887.]

    A striking image of a Japanese flower vendor, with delicate contemporary hand colouring, most notably to the flowers. After time spent in America, where he fought in the Civil War, Adolfo Farsari (1841 - 1898) moved to Japan in 1873, establishing himself in Yokohama. In 1885 he opened his own...

    £200

  10. FOREST, BISSON FRERES, &c

    A collection of eight albumen prints (or salt and albumen collages) from mammoth-plate negatives...

    France, 1864-5.

    An exceptional series of oversize prints commissioned by the Compagnie de Chemins de Fer de l‘Ouest to commemorate the construction of a series of new bridges completed 1861–1864, including the metal bridge at Orival, later destroyed in the Franco-Prussian War, and the oblique stone bridge of...

    £30000

  11. [GEORGE V – SINGAPORE.]

    Souvenir Singapore Silver Jubilee Celebrations.

    Singapore, Printers Limited, [May 1935].

    A scarce photographic souvenir depicting the communities and businesses of Singapore partaking in the celebrations for the Silver Jubilee of King George V.

    £1200

  12. [HAMBURG.] 

    A sammelband of material relating to the Great Fire of Hamburg. 

    [Germany, 1842.] 

    A fine and unusual volume of materials relating to the Great Fire of Hamburg of May 1842, comprising a long article by Joseph Mendelssohn published over five issues of Der Komet, special issues of several periodicals devoted to the disaster, a rare poem by Margarethe Hedwig Hülle, and...

    £850

  13. HARLINGUE, L. [Albert].

    'Baktiaris Persans'.

    [Iran, c. 1905-1911].

    An impressive press image of the Bakhtiari tribe – revolutionaries in the Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1911 – here posing in strength with their weapons. Their leader, Sardar As’ad Bakhtiari (1856-1917), was a key figure in the Iranian revolution; under his command (and with German...

    £1500

  14. HEANEY, Seamus, et al.

    The Whoseday Book.

    Dublin, The Irish Hospice Foundation, 1999.

    First edition of an anthology of contemporary Irish poetry and art in calendar form, this copy signed by Seamus Heaney (twice), Michael Hartnett, Aidan Higgins, Paul Muldoon, Ulick O’Connor, William Trevor, Maeve Binchy, Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, Nóirín Ní Riain, Billy Roche, Dermot Bolger, Medbh...

    £500

  15. [HILL & ADAMSON.] 

    ELLIOT, Andrew, and Dr Elliot; ANNAN, Thomas.  Calotypes by D. O. Hill and R. Adamson Illustrating...

    Edinburgh, Printed for Private Circulation, 1928. 

    First edition, one of 38 copies, of the first monograph on the pioneering Scottish photographers David Octavius Hill & Robert Adamson, fifty years in publication, sumptuously illustrated with carbon prints from the original calotype negatives.

    £15000

  16. HORACE.

    Quinti Horatii Flacci Opera cum novo commentario ad modum Joannis Bond.

    Paris, Didot, 1855.

    The deluxe issue of Didot’s Horace, a fine early photographically-illustrated work, complete with all the photographic plates, headpieces and maps, and printed on fine paper.

    £900

  17. JACOBSON, Ken.

    Odalisques & Arabesques: Orientalist Photography 1839–1925.

    [London], Quaritch, 2007.

    Profusely illustrated, this is the most comprehensive survey to date of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century photography of the Middle East and North Africa. Using Orientalist painting as a counterpoint, it primarily relates the extraordinarily rich visual documentation of the peoples and cultures...

    £60

  18. JOHNSTON, J. Dudley.

    Snowbound.

    1923-’24.

    An attractive Swiss winter scene by J. Dudley Johnston. Johnston (1868–1955) was President of the Royal Photographic Society from 1923-’5 and again from 1929-’31. He was a leading Pictorialist photographer, a member of the Linked Ring Brotherhood, and responsible for establishing the historic...

    £2200

  19. LEIGHTON, J. Harold.

    Collection of exhibition prints,

    1920s–1940s.

    An impressive international exhibition portfolio - by renowned Pictorialist and an expert in this process.

    £7500