Rare Book Monthly

Book Catalogue Reviews - September - 2007 Issue

19th Century Travel Photography from Shapero Rare Books

Vintage Photography from Bernard J. Shapero.

Vintage Photography from Bernard J. Shapero.

by Michael Stillman

The latest catalogue from Bernard J. Shapero Rare Books is not one of books at all. It is a catalogue of photographs, specifically, Vintage Travel Photography 1850-1900. While there are a few exceptions, most of these photographs were taken on travels to Asia, notably India and China, but also Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and others (to use their current names). These parts of the world may still appear mysterious to westerners, but in the 19th century, they were downright baffling, being so different from European lands. These vintage photographs, some offered singly, others parts of albums or collections, provide a window to distant lands in distant times, places that no longer exist in the form in which they were pictured. This catalogue, and the photographs offered, grant us a rare trip back in time. Here are some samples.

Item 1, shown on the cover (click the thumbnail image to the left to enlarge) is the exception -- a book of photos not related to travel. It is a spectacular work. The title is Animal Locomotion. An Electro-Photographic Investigation of Consecutive Phases of Animal Movements. 1872-1885. This book by Eadweard Muybridge was published in 1887 by the University of Pennsylvania, which provided funding for his studies. Muybridge took over 20,000 photographs of animals in movement to create these series of images of their movement. He was able to use these sequential photographs to create early "motion pictures." Among the animals Muybridge liked to photograph were nude women, which certainly couldn't have hurt sales. It was his work that first answered the old question of whether all four of a horse's hooves are ever off the ground at one time when it is running (the answer is "yes"). Priced at £15,000 (US equivalent of approximately $30,793).

Item 2 is one of the earlier photographs you will find, a circa 1845 salt print of two Newhaven fishwives by David Hill and Robert Adamson. Fishwives, for the record, are women who sell fish, not those who are married to them. Hill and Adamson's work is highly collectible as it is both of high quality for the time and because Adamson died in 1848 while the art was still very new. £2,000 ($4,105).

Item 15 is a collection of 29 of what may be the earliest photographs from Madagascar. Very few westerners were allowed into the country during the early days of photography. Rev. William Ellis managed to gain entry for missionary work and was able to take these photographs around 1855. A rival Jesuit missionary may also have taken pictures at this time, but if so, they have not been found. £27,000 ($55,421).

One feature that has changed the least in the years since these photographs were taken is the Great Wall of China. Item 79 is a circa 1875 shot attributed to William Saunders. £175 ($359). Not so common today, however, is the rickshaw, pictured in Saunders' 1870 photograph. It depicts two women in a double-seater, their driver pushing from behind (it looks similar to a wheelbarrow). £ 175 ($359).

Rare Book Monthly

  • Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    17th July 2025
    Forum, July 17: Lucianus Samosatensis. Dialogoi, editio princeps, second issue, Florence, Laurentius Francisci de Alopa, 1496. £10,000 to £15,000.
    Forum, July 17: Boccaccio (Giovanni). Il Decamerone, Florence, Philippo di Giunta, 1516. £10,000 to £15,000.
    Forum, July 17: Henry VII (King) & Philip the Fair (Duke of Burgundy). [Intercursus Magnus], [Commercial and Political Treaty between Henry VII and Philip Duke of Burgundy], manuscript copy in Latin, original vellum, 1499. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum, July 17: Bible, English. The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New, Robert Barker, 1613. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum, July 17: Bond (Michael). A Bear Called Paddington, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author, 1958. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    17th July 2025
    Forum, July 17: Yeats (William Butler). The Secret Rose, first edition, with extensive autograph corrections, additions and amendments by the author for a new edition, 1897. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, bound in dark green morocco elaborately tooled in gilt and with 3 watercolours to fore-edge, by Fazakerley of Liverpool, 1841. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum, July 17: Miró (Juan), Wassily Kandinsky, John Buckland-Wright, Stanley William Hayter and others.- Spender (Stephen). Fraternity, one of 101 copies, with signed engravings by 9 artists. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Sowerby (George Brettingham). Album comprising 22 leaves of original watercolour drawings of fossil remains of Cheltenham and Vicinity, [c.1840]. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Mathematics.- Blue paper copy.- Euclid. De gli Elementi, Urbino, Appresso Domenico Frisolino, 1575. £12,000 to £18,000.
  • Sotheby’s
    Geek Week
    2-17 July | New York
    Sotheby’s, July 15: Buzz Aldrin's FLOWN Apollo 11 Crew-Signed NASA Manned Spacecraft Center Cover. $15,000 to $20,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 15: Lunar Surface Flown Mission Emblem Presented to Tom Stafford by John Young. $8,000 to $12,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 17: Albert Einstein. Typed Letter Signed ("A. Einstein."), to Ann Morrisett, Affirming a Pacifist's Right to Self-Defense, March 21, 1952. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Sotheby’s
    Geek Week
    2-17 July | New York
    Sotheby’s, July 17: Operating and Maintenance Manual for the BINAC Binary Automatic Computer Built for Northrop Aircraft Corporation. Philadelphia, 1949. $30,000 to $50,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 17: Steve Jobs Apple Computer Business Card, c. 1977. $5,000 to $8,000.
    Sotheby’s, July 15: Extensive Chronology of Spacecraft From Apollo to Skylab, Signed by a Member of Every Crewed Apollo Flight and the Commanders of Each Skylab Mission. $5,000 to $8,000.
  • Rare Book Hub is now mobile-friendly!
  • DOYLE
    Rare Books, Autographs & Maps
    July 23, 2025
    DOYLE, July 23: WALL, BERNHARDT. Greenwich Village. Types, Tenements & Temples. Estimate $300-500
    DOYLE, July 23: STOKES, I. N. PHELPS. The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909. New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1915-28. Estimate: $3,000-5,000
    DOYLE, July 23: [AUTOGRAPH - US PRESIDENT]FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. A signed photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Estimate $500-800
    DOYLE, July 23: [ARION PRESS]. ABBOTT, EDWIN A. Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions. San Francisco, 1980. Estimate $2,000-3,000.
    DOYLE, July 23: TOLSTOY, LYOF N. and NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, translator. Anna Karénina ... in eight parts. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., [1886]. Estimate: $400-600
    DOYLE, July 23: ROWLING, J.K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. London: Bloomsbury, 2000. Estimate $1,200-1,800

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