Oct 21, 2002 - Sale 1947

Sale 1947 - Lot 52

Price Realized: $ 5,060
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 6,000
THOMSON, JOHN<>
Street Incidents, A Series of Twenty-One Permanent Photographs, with Descriptive Letter-Press.<> With 21 brown-toned Woodburytypes, each 4 1/2x3 1/2 inches (11.5x9 cm.) and the reverse, depicting occupational studies, including child workers, and London's indigent. Folio, gilt-pictorial black and red stamped cloth, overall fading, corners bumped; hinges starting, title page stained; prints are crisp and clean. London: Sampson, Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1881

Additional Details



John Thomson, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, was a pioneer of photojournalism who honed his skills recording the people and landscape of the Far East, notably in China and Cambodia. Upon returning to England, Thomson fixed his lens on "Street life in London," publishing a book of the same title in 1877-78, which was subsequently reissued as "Street Incidents." The undeniable realism of these very detailed portraits is compelling, conveying a new, higher standard to illustrated books of the period concerned with social issues.<