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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[EMPRESS DOWAGER and DALAI LAMA.]
Photographs of religious traditions in Peking.
Beijing, c. 1908.
A record of religious cultures and traditions with rare images of the Dalai Lama’s visit to Beijing and the preparation for the Empress Dowager Cixi’s funeral procession, in 1908.
£4500
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[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
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[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
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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
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[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
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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.
£750
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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
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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
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LEIGHTON, J. Harold.
Collection of exhibition prints.
1920s–1940s.
An impressive portfolio of exhibition prints made using the innovative gum bichromate process by the renowned Pictorialist photographer J. Harold Leighton, an expert in the process, exhibited from England to continental Europe, United States, Canada, and India.
£7500
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[LOVE TOKEN.]
Portrait of a woman wearing photographic jewellery.
[1850s].
An ambrotype portrait of a young woman with a photographic brooch at her neck depicting a man, presumably her betrothed or spouse.
£375
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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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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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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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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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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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RICCI, Giovanni, and Ercolano PORTA.
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 Southern Hunan, an important copy bound for presentation by the Vicar Apostolic of Southern Hunan to King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy.
£750
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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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[SHANGHAI.]
Shanghai of To-day. A Souvenir Album of fifty Vandyke Gravure Prints of “the Model Settlement”. Introduction by...
Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore, Kelly and Walsh, 1930.
Third edition, revised and enlarged (first 1927 with only thirty-eight plates), of this photobook showing the landmarks of Shanghai, our copy in a deluxe binding (likely for presentation) and with contemporary Shanghai provenance.
£1250