Oct 17, 2019 - Sale 2520

Sale 2520 - Lot 5

Price Realized: $ 5,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,500
CARLETON E. WATKINS (1829-1916)
Vernal Falls 350 feet, Yosemite Valley. Mammoth-plate albumen print, the image measuring 15x20 3/4 inches (38.1x52.7 cm.), unmounted. 1878-81

Additional Details

In July 1861, Watkins made a career-changing decision to photograph Yosemite. He traveled wiith a mammoth-plate camera that held glass plate negatives measuring 18x22 inches. His majestic pictures influenced Congress and encouraged Pres. Lincoln to create the Yosemite Grant Act, in 1864, a bill that declared the land inviolable.

Naef and Hult-Lewis, Carleton Watkins: The Complete Mammoth Photographs (The J. Paul Getty Museum), cat. no. 241 (CEW 859), p. 107.