Apr 08, 2014 - Sale 2344

Sale 2344 - Lot 243

Price Realized: $ 1,125
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600
(SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.) [Ulke, Henry.] Cabinet card portrait of Smithsonian head Spencer Fullerton Baird. Albumen photograph, 5 3/4 x 4 inches, on plain card mount; pin hole in upper mount; captioned "Spencer F. Baird" on mount recto. [Washington, 1878?]

Additional Details

Spencer Fullerton Baird (1822-1887) was the second secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Henry Ulke painted a portrait of Baird for the Smithsonian in 1887, most likely in commemoration of his death. This photograph, found among Ulke's papers, was very likely Ulke's main reference for the painting. It seems to date from the same sitting as an 1878 photograph of Baird by Ulke, engraved for Popular Science in August 1888.