Fotografie des 19. – 21. Jahrhunderts (Katalog nur online verfügbar)

British Royal Family
Portraits of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII (1841-1910)
Los 4033

Ergebnis (inkl. Aufgeld) ^*
1.625€ (US$ 1,868)

Details

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.

Mounts slightly soiled, prints with some surface scuff marks, unmounted print with some creases, stronger vertical crease in mid section, small tear in upper edge and faded, otherwise two mounted prints with strong contrasts and in very good condition.

British Royal Family
Queen Victoria and Royalty at Osborne, August 11, 1881
Los 4035

Ergebnis (inkl. Aufgeld) ^*
438€ (US$ 503)

Details

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. – Mount with slight traces of use, small crease in upper left corner of print, a few surface scuff marks, otherwise in very good condition.

Burma
Views of Rangoon
Los 4037

Ergebnis (inkl. Aufgeld) ^*
250€ (US$ 287)

Details

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. – Some scuff marks, creases and fading, otherwise all in good to very good condition.

Busch, Wilhelm
Wilhelm Busch and Paul Lindau
Los 4038

Ergebnis (inkl. Aufgeld) ^*
625€ (US$ 718)

Details

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. – Some foxing spots and soiling.

China
Portraits of high ranking Chinese Imperial officials and views of Peking and surroundings
Los 4042

Ergebnis (inkl. Aufgeld) ^*
13.125€ (US$ 15,086)

Details

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. – Boards slightly warped; some scuff marks and traces of use; portfolio with scuff marks and slightly rubbed edges; ties missing or torn. Some surface rubbing and scuffing of prints; some slightly faded; otherwise most prints in good to very good condition.

Provenance: Descendants of Viktor von Strauß und Torney (1809-1899)

Lit.: 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.

China
Creek Life, Pearl River
Los 4043

Ergebnis (inkl. Aufgeld) ^*
1.500€ (US$ 1,724)

Details

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. – Mount with light foxing, print with slight fading in edges, some light surface scuff marks, otherwise in very good condition.

Lit.: Terry Bennett. History of Photography in China: Western Photographers 1861-1879. London: Quaritch 2010, ill. p. 229.