Feb 07, 2008 - Sale 2135

Sale 2135 - Lot 31

Price Realized: $ 10,800
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 10,000 - $ 15,000
EMERSON, PETER HENRY Pictures of East Anglian Life. With 32 photogravures after photographs by Emerson and 15 small-format illustrations. With general and descriptive text and three appendices. Large gilt-lettered pictorial vellum folio, dampstained, rear cover abraded; hinges reinforced; plates crisp; with the errata sheet. "no. 9" is written in calligraphic script, on verso, of the half-title. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1888
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Additional Details

Early Issue. With "A Way Across the Marshes" at plate XIX.

The Truthful Lens, 79 & 197.
Naef and Goldschmidt write about this publication: "An ordinary edition was advertised at 500 regular and 75 deluxe copies, while actually only 250 regular and 25 deluxe copies were issued according to Kahan and Colson."

The photographs in this publication informed the transformation of photography as an art form. An outspoken champion of the medium, Emerson was a proponent of Naturalism, and created pictures of East Anglian folk life that were both aesthetic and accessible. Other photographers of the era employed a different approach that imitated the soft-focus techniques associated with painting.


The photogravure process Emerson employed is, to this day, the most sophisticated photomechanical technique. It relies on a photographer's original negative (versus a photographic print) as a direct matrix. Emerson's large-format gravures, several measuring 11x13 inches (27.9x33 cm.) and the reverse, chronicle the simple beauty of quotidian activities in the picturesque Norfolk region.


JPGs are available upon request.