Sell or Auction Your Carleton Watkins Yosemite Valley 1863 63 Photos for up to $112,500 or More at Nate D. Sanders Auctions
FREE ESTIMATE. To buy, auction, sell or consign your Carleton Watkins Yosemite Valley 1863 63 photos that is for sale, please email your description and photos to [email protected] of Nate D. Sanders Auctions (http://www.NateDSanders.com).
Sell Your Carleton Watkins Yosemite Valley 1863 63 Photos
Consign your item at Nate D. Sanders Auctions. Send a description and images of your item to us at [email protected].
Here is a Carleton Watkins Yosemite Valley 1863 63 photos item we have sold in the past:
Scarce collection of 63 photographs from Carleton Watkins’ groundbreaking publication, ”Yosemite Valley: Photographic Views of the Falls and Valley of Yosemite in Mariposa County, California”. San Francisco, 1863. One of the most complete collections, lot comprises a total of 63 photographs, with two of the title page and map, and 61 of the Yosemite Valley, each measuring 11.625” x 7.5”. Scarce as such.
Lured out to California for the Gold Rush, Watkins soon turned his pursuits to photography, a calling for which he was naturally gifted. In 1861, he traveled to Yosemite outfitted with both mammoth-plate and stereoscopic cameras to make the first photographic narrative of the majestic valley, with these photographs the result. They were so impactful, after having been shared amongst Congressmen and Abraham Lincoln, that the Yosemite Grant Act was passed in 1864, a precursor to the creation of the U.S. National Park System in 1872.
Interestingly, no complete accounting of Watkins’ Yosemite photos from 1863 is documented, but next to a collection of 65 photographs, this grouping is the most complete at 63 photographs. Only a handful of other collections even claim more than 50 photographs. The views are exquisite, capturing the rock formations, foliage and natural water sources of the Valley as they appeared in 1861, yet unspoiled by overcrowding. Watkins’ ability to capture the depth of the images – with distant mountains hovering over meadows and streams, is particularly beautiful, aided by the use of his two camera systems.
Photographs retain superb contrast and tonality, all disbound in a period brown morocco gilt slipcase, tooled in gilt on the cover, ”Watkins’ Yosemite Gallery.” Overall in very good to near fine condition. Sold for $112,500.
Consign your item at Nate D. Sanders Auctions. Send a description and images of your item to us at [email protected].
FREE ESTIMATE. To buy, auction, sell or consign your item that is for sale, please email your description and photos to [email protected] of Nate D. Sanders Auctions (http://www.NateDSanders.com).