May 15, 2012 - Sale 2279

Sale 2279 - Lot 240

Price Realized: $ 1,200
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
NASMYTH, JAMES; and CARPENTER, JAMES. The Moon: Considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite. 25 plates on 24 leaves, comprising 12 mounted Woodburytypes of lunar models, 6 photogravures, 4 autotypes, 2 lithographs, and one chromolithograph; 46 text illustrations. Half-title; ad leaf at end dated December 1873. 4to, original gilt-pictorial cloth with depiction of lunar eruption on front cover, rebacked retaining lower half of original backstrip, endpapers renewed; contents clean, half title and last few leaves loose, first leaf of preface trimmed in outer and lower margins. London: John Murray, 1874

Additional Details

first edition. Nasmyth and Carpenter believed that the external features of the moon were formed by volcanic activity. For images of the lunar surface they resorted to photographing deceptively realistic plaster models because of the technical limitations of astronomical photography at the time. BEA, pages 821-22; DSB IX, 616; Parr & Badger, The Photobook I, pages 38 and 51; The Truthful Lens 125.