?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 9,000 - $ 12,000
(CALIFORNIA.) The Yosemite Book; A Description of the Yosemite Valley and the Adjacent Region of the Sierra Nevada, and of the Big Trees of California. By J. D. Whitney. With 28 mounted albumen photographs, the images measuring 6 1/8x8 1/8 inches (15.5x20.6 cm.), and the reverse, each with a printed title on mount recto; with two folding maps, one of the Yosemite Valley (dated 1865) and the other of the Sierras adjacent to Yosemite (dated 1863-67), the second map with the penciled notation "John Muir." Small folio, 1/2 gilt-lettered morocco, edgewear; all edges gilt. THE FIRST AND LIMITED EDITION OF 250 COPIES, THIS COPY WITH THE BOOKPLATE OF ALFRED SUTRO. New York: Julien Bien, 1868
Carleton Watkins was responsible for twenty-four of the photographs and W. Harris, the survey's photographer, for four. According to Naef and Goldschmidt, The Yosemite Book was "One of the first American books devoted entirely to photographs of landscape, this volume was made at the suggestion of Clarence King, early patron of American photography and one of Whitney's assistants in Yosemite."
Alfred Sutro (1869-1945) was a longstanding member of the California Historical Society. A well-regarded attorney, he was an important book lover and collector.
