Title: 100 FINE PHOTOGRAPHS
Date: February 16, 2006
Time: 1:30 PM
Exhibition: Saturday, February 11, 10-4
Monday, February 13, 10-6
Tuesday, February 14, 10-6
Wednesday, February 15, 10-6
Thursday, February 16, 10-noon
Gallery walk: Sat., Feb. 11, 3PM
Contact Person: Daile Kaplan
dkaplan@swanngalleries.com

The full spectrum of the photographic medium was represented in Swann's annual February auction of 100 Fine Photographs.

Among the earliest items in the sale was a sixth-plate ruby ambrotype of Abraham Lincoln that was originally owned by the family of Lincoln's Secretary of State, William Henry Seward, 1858, $5,290 (see top illustration).

From the 1860s through the 1880s was a fascinating collection of 137 photographs and other memorabilia related to circus and sideshow performersk, $17,250 (second illustration).

Notable albums included a nearly complete set of the Atlas Photographique de la Lune, a rare classic of photographic literature, with 69 of 71 oversize heliogravure close-ups of the lunar surface, Paris, 1896-1910, $43,700 (third illustration).

Twentieth-century highlights included a stunning unique pigment print by Frantisek Drtikol, Nude ("Yo Hay Tang"), 1929, $48,300 (fourth illustration); and sublime images by André Kertész, among them Montmartre (Daisy Bar), silver print, 1930, printed 1940s, $34,500 (see final illustration).