British Royal Family
Les deux Petits Savoyards / Princesses Victoria and Alice wearing riding habits
Los 4031
Schätzung
1.000€ (US$ 1,136)
Photographer: Roger Fenton (1819-1869). Les deux Petits Savoyards / Princesses Victoria and Alice wearing riding habits. January, 1854. 3 albumen prints, 2 mounted to board. 25,7 x 21 cm, 20 x 16,2 cm and 20,5 x 16,5 cm. Annotated in ink below the image on the mount.
These charming and rare images depict the British royal children Princess Helena and Princess Louise in fur-trimmed coats, as well as Albert Van de Weyer, Victoria Van de Weyer, and Prince Albert Edward (later King Edward VII) in costume for the play Les deux Petits Savoyards. The group also includes a portrait of Princesses Victoria and Alice wearing riding habits. Prints of these images are held in the Royal Collection Trust.
British Royal Family
Prince Alfred and the Prince of Wales with Mr. Gibbs / Prince Alfred and the Prince of Wales with Dr. Ernst Becker / Prince Alfred with violin
Los 4032
Schätzung
1.000€ (US$ 1,136)
Photographer: Roger Fenton (1819-1869). Prince Alfred and the Prince of Wales with Mr. Gibbs / Prince Alfred and the Prince of Wales with Dr. Ernst Becker / Prince Alfred with violin. February 1-8, 1854. 3 albumen prints, 2 mounted to board. 19 x 16,8 cm, 20,8 x 17,2 cm and 20,5 x 13,3 cm. Annotated in ink below the image on the mount.
Prints of these images are in the Royal Collection Trust.
British Royal Family
Portraits of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII (1841-1910)
Los 4033
Schätzung
1.000€ (US$ 1,136)
Photographer: John Jabez Edwin Mayall (1813-1901). Portraits of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII (1841-1910). 1857, 1858, and ca.1860. 3 albumen prints, 2 top arched and mounted to board. Each circa 26 x 20,5 cm.
British Royal Family
Princess Alexandra of Denmark in her wedding dress
Los 4034
Schätzung
800€ (US$ 909)
Photographer: John Jabez Edwin Mayall (1813-1901). Princess Alexandra of Denmark in her wedding dress. 10th March, 1863. Albumen print, top arched and mounted to board. 26 x 20,5 cm. Annotated in ink below the image on the mount.
British Royal Family
Queen Victoria and Royalty at Osborne, August 11, 1881
Los 4035
Schätzung
500€ (US$ 568)
Photographer: Cornelius Jabez Hughes (1819-1884). Queen Victoria and Royalty at Osborne, August 11, 1881. Albumen print, mounted to board. 19,7 x 23,8 cm. Photographer's name printed and sitter's names annotated in ink below the image on the mount.
Born in England in 1819, Hughes began his photographic career in 1847 as an assistant in the studio of J.J.E. Mayall in London. After briefly working in Glasgow, he returned to London in 1855 to assume ownership of Mayall's studio. Hughes later built his own studio on the Isle of Wight, where he often photographed Queen Victoria. Toward the end of his life he teamed up with his assistant, Gustav Mullins, to form a new partnership, Hughes & Mullins. Hughes was popular both as a portrait photographer and as a writer on the subject of photography.
Photographers: Felice Beato (1832-1909), Philip Adolphe Klier (1845-1911), and others. Views of Rangoon. Late 1880s-early 1890s. 30 albumen prints, mounted to album pages. Each ca. 21,5 x 27,5 cm or reverse (mounts ca. 30 x 40 cm). Each annotated in blue ink below the image on the mount. Bound in green half-leather album with gilt tooling and gilt-ornamented endpapers.
The album presents views of Rangoon and its surroundings, including temple complexes with multi-tiered pagodas, monasteries, and devotional scenes with monks and pilgrims. Other photographs depict urban and commercial life, such as market scenes, river transport on the Irrawaddy, and elephants hauling timber. Ethnographic portraits and group scenes of Burmese families and townspeople further illustrate local dress and everyday life, including a large group portrait posed before a traditional raised wooden residence.
Photographer: Philip Adolphe Klier (1845-1911). Views of Rangoon. 1880s. 12 albumen prints (1 duplicate), most mounted to board. Each between 19,5 x 26,5 cm and 20,5 x 26,8 cm or reverse (mounts between 27 x 34 cm and 29,5 x 40,5 cm or reverse). Each signed, titled, and numbered in the negative in the lower margin.
This lot comprises a range of views of Rangoon, including landscape scenes in the Cantonment Gardens with ponds, bridges, garden pavilions, and surrounding trees, as well as the Shwedagon Pagoda and its precincts, showing terraces, stairways, stupas, and shrine buildings, with groups of monks and laypeople visible within the temple complex.
Photographer: Ernst Hanfstaengel (1840-1897). Wilhelm Busch and Paul Lindau. 1877. Albumen print on carte-de-visite mount. Annotated in pencil on mount verso.
Wilhelm Busch and Paul Lindau became acquainted in Munich after 1873 through the artists’ society “Allotria,” whose members included Franz von Lenbach, Friedrich August von Kaulbach, Lorenz Gedon, and Hermann Levi. Lindau, who held Busch in particularly high esteem, sought a closer personal and artistic relationship. A prominent editor, playwright, and theater director, Lindau achieved success in the 1870s with his stage works - most notably Maria und Magdalena - and later reached a wide readership with his “Berlin” novel cycle (1886-88) and travel writings. The present image originates from the same photographic sitting that also produced the circular composition The Three Graces, depicting Lenbach, Busch, and Lindau together.
Photographers: Scowen & Co. (active 1871-1890). People and landscapes of Ceylon. 1880s. 4 albumen prints, mounted to board. Each ca. 21 x 28 cm (mounts ca. 28 x 33 cm). Each numbered and titled in the negative in lower right corner.
This lot comprises late-19th-century photographs from colonial Ceylon (Sri Lanka), including a staged portrait of Vedda men, street scenes in Colombo (Colpetty and Maradana), and a view of the Dalada Maligawa (Temple of the Tooth) in Kandy.
Photographers: Scowen & Co. (1871-1890) and unknown. Views of Ceylon. 1880s-1890s. 9 albumen and 4 collodion prints, mounted to board. Each between 20 x 26 cm and 20,5 x 28 cm (mounts between 25 x 30,5 cm and 28,5 x 36 cm). Some numbered and titled in the negative in lower margin.
This selection of photographs presents urban and coastal scenes from late 19th-century Ceylon, focusing on Colombo and Galle. The images depict markets, village streets, coastal infrastructure, and landmarks such as the Colombo Lighthouse, Gordon Gardens, and the Port of Colombo. Colonial buildings appear alongside palm-lined roads, bullock carts, street vendors, and early electric trams, offering a layered view of a society shaped by local traditions and British colonial influence.
Photographer: Colombo Apothecaries Company (active 1883-late 1920s). Botanical studies. 1880s. 6 albumen prints. Each ca. 28 x 21 cm. Most signed and captioned in the negative in lower margin as well as some with "Apothecaries & Co. - Photographers - Colombo, Ceylon" blind stamp in lower right corner; annotations in pencil as well as "Dr. Arthur Berger" collection stamp on the verso.
This collection comprises botanical photographs produced by C. A. & Co., also known as the Colombo Apothecaries Company, a mercantile firm established in Colombo, Ceylon in 1883, by W.M. Smith and James Smith Finlay. The company expanded into photography by the early 1890s. They acquired the negatives of Charles T. Scowen & Co. and relocated their studio to Kandy with its favorable climate for photographic work. The images document tropical plant species, including Parmentiera cereifera (Candle Tree) and Corypha umbraculifera (Talipot Palm), each labeled with Latin names and specimen numbers.
Provenienz: Estate of Dr. Arthur Berger
China
Portraits of high ranking Chinese Imperial officials and views of Peking and surroundings
Los 4042
Schätzung
10.000€ (US$ 11,364)
Photographer: Georges Auguste Morache (1837-1906). Portraits of high-ranking Chinese imperial officials and views of Peking and its surroundings. 1863-1866. 27 albumen prints, mounted to board. Each ca. 16,5 x 21 cm and smaller (mounts 44 x 34 cm). Each signed by the photographer in red ink below the image in the lower right corner of the mount; most extensively annotated in German in black ink, and each with title and explanatory text by the photographer in red ink on mount verso. Loose in a contemporary half-linen card portfolio.
Photographs by the amateur photographer Dr. Georges Auguste Morache are among the earliest known photographic views and portraits of people in Beijing and remain extremely rare. Morache had no commercial ambitions as a photographer; his work appears to have been driven primarily by personal curiosity and by the technical challenges of photography, which was still in an early stage of development during his stay in China. He organized his photographs into thematic groups, which he later presented as gifts to family members and close acquaintances.
Among the thirteen portrait photographs in this group, the images of high-ranking officials and dignitaries - identified by name and rank in inscriptions on the verso annotated by Morache - are of particular significance. These include portraits of Ouen-Siang (?), Foreign Minister and Vice-President of the Imperial Council; the Finance Minister and a member of the Imperial Council; the Korean ambassador; a high-ranking Buddhist monk; and several other civilian and military figures. The most widely known image is Morache’s portrait of Prince Gong, who emerged as one of the most influential figures at the Qing court in the aftermath of the Second Opium War.
Today there are only a small number of extant photographs by Morache which are dispersed among museums and private collections. Notably, examples are held in the Stephan Loewentheil Historical Photography of China Collection in New York. A further album, titled Vues de Pékin 1865-67 and comprising 29 photographs signed on the title page, is preserved at the Toyo Bunko (Oriental Library) in Tokyo, formerly part of the George Morrison Collection. The Musée du quai Branly in Paris also holds Morache photographs, and an additional bound album of approximately forty prints resides in a private British collection. The present group therefore constitutes a fifth surviving portfolio. Unlike the photographs in the aforementioned collections, each image here bears Morache’s signature on the front of the mount, possibly intended to distinguish his work from that of other photographers active in Beijing at the time.
Dr. Morache studied surgery at the naval medical school in Brest, continued his medical training in Strasbourg, and later attended the prestigious Val-de-Grâce military hospital in Paris. His professional standing led to his appointment as a medical officer at the French legation in Beijing. In 1863 he traveled to China accompanied by his wife and his mother, Pauline Morache, who maintained close contact with diplomatic and intellectual circles in the city and closely observed local cultural and political life. Pauline Morache recorded her impressions and experiences extensively in German on the versos of the large mounts accompanying the photographs, suggesting a German cultural background. She was acquainted with the Countess of Stolberg-Stolberg, who introduced her to the family of Friedrich Viktor Strauss (later Viktor von Strauss und Torney), a prominent Protestant theologian, religious historian, and translator, best known for producing the first German translation of the Tao Te King. It is therefore highly plausible that the inscriptions on the mounts were written with Strauss directly in mind as their intended reader.
Provenienz: Descendants of Viktor von Strauß und Torney (1809-1899)
Literatur: Édouard de Saint-Ours. The Photography of Dr. Georges Auguste Morache (1837–1908): A Selection from the Stephan Loewentheil Historical Photography of China Collection (exhibition catalogue). London, 2016.
Photographer: John Thomson (1837-1921). Creek Life, Pearl River. 1869-70. Albumen print, mounted to original board. 23,5 x 28 cm (mount ca. 30 x 40 cm). Signed in lower left in the negative, titled in ink and pencil in German below the image on the mount.
A major figure of nineteenth century photography, John Thomson spent ten years in the Far East, the last four of which were in China. He was a prolific writer and skillfully marketed his own work, which was reproduced in many periodicals and books of the time. His vivid portrayal of the people and landscapes of China in the late 1860s and early 1870s is undoubtedly among the finest bodies of work on this subject.
Literatur: Terry Bennett. History of Photography in China: Western Photographers 1861-1879. London: Quaritch 2010, ill. p. 229.
Photographer: John Thomson (attributed to, 1837-1921). Temple, Canton. 1869. Albumen print, mounted to original board. 23,3 x 27 cm (mount ca. 30 x 40 cm). Titled in ink/pencil in German below the image on the mount.
A print of this image is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Photographer: John Thomson (1837-1921). Garden in Canton. 1868. Albumen print, mounted to original board. 23,3 x 27,3 cm (mount ca. 30 x 40 cm). Signed and dated in the lower left of the negative; titled in German in ink below the image on the mount; annotated in pencil on mount verso.
Literatur: Terry Bennett. History of Photography in China: Western Photographers 1861-1879. London: Quaritch 2010, ill. p. 221.
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Galerie Bassenge
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Telefon: +49 30 8938029-0
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© 2026 Galerie Gerda Bassenge
Galerie Bassenge
Erdener Str. 5A
14193 Berlin
Öffnungszeiten:
Montag bis Donnerstag, 10–18 Uhr,
Freitag, 10–16 Uhr
Telefon: +49 30 8938029-0
Fax: +49 30 8918025
E-Mail: info (at) bassenge.com
Impressum
Datenschutzerklärung
© 2026 Galerie Gerda Bassenge