Carleton E. Watkins 1829-1916

mammoth-plate albumen print, mounted, numbered '36' in blue pencil, possibly by the photographer, on the mount, matted, 1865-66

Presumably, the Gardner Collection of Photographs, Harvard University

To the present owner, 1965-66

Grading this albumen print on a scale of 1 to 10 - a 10 being an albumen print with deep brown dark tones and highlights that retain all of their original detail - this print rates a 10. The print's dark areas are a deep, intense brown. While the brightly sunlit highlights - on the foreground rocks and gate posts, for example - have less detail than surrounding areas, this is not a function of fading. The print is simply somewhat light in these areas. The print is in essentially excellent condition. There is a 1/2-inch tear in the center of the print's left edge which must have been present in the print prior to mounting. This is unobtrusive and only visible only upon studied observation. There is a tiny spot in the sky area to the left of the towering pine which may simply be an imperfection in the paper. In the upper center of the sky, there is what appears to be an arched scuff mark roughly 2-inches square. This is most visible in raking light, but can be seen faintly when the print is viewed straight on. None of these issues is obtrusive, and none detracts from the overwhelmingly fine appearance of this print. The mount is somewhat age darkened, with very minor sporadic soiling.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

The photograph offered here, and in the following 9 lots, are from the collection of Anthony Morse, III, a collateral descendant of the photographer, painter, and inventor Samuel F. B. Morse (1791 - 1872).  As a high school student at the Cambridge, Massachusetts, Brown and Nichols School in the 1960s, Anthony Morse's avid interest in geology was already confirmed.  Morse also served as the student chairman of the Brown and Nichols library committee, and in late 1965 or early 1966, he was shown, by the school's librarian, a stack of mammoth-plate 19^th-century photographs of the American West.  Morse remembers the stack as being as at least three feet high.  The librarian related to Morse that a friend at Harvard had rescued the photographs when the University was about to discard them.   For approximately 40 of the photographs, Morse traded a 2-volume set of geology text-books, which was added to the school's library. 

Improbable as this may sound, the de-accessioning of quantities of 19^th-century landscape and geological photographs from Harvard in the 1960s is a documented fact.  In her article, 'The Gardner Collection of Photographs' (History of Photography, Vol. 15, No. 1, Spring 1991, pp. 17-22), to which this entry is indebted, Heather Ross Munro describes the circumstances surrounding the formation and later decline of a large collection of photographs housed in the Geology Department of Harvard University.  Initially funded in 1892 by Harvard graduate George Gardner, the collection numbered over 7,500 photographs by 1916.   By the 1960s, however, when the teaching of geology through photographs had been replaced by slides, illustrated textbooks, and field trips, the collection was all but forgotten.   In 1962, a Geology Department staff member was asked to deal with the vast archive, and a call was made to the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York, who took 350 of the photographs for its collection.  As Munro relates, Harvard ultimately decided to keep only around 1,000 photographs--mostly those dealing with Massachusetts--leaving some 6,000 photographs unaccounted for.  It is assumed that the photographs offered here were originally part of this Harvard group. 

In 1966, Anthony Morse gave approximately 15 of his photographs devoted to Oregon and the Pacific Coast to his grandmother, who was living in Oregon at that time.  These were later donated to the Oregon Historical Society.  

The present image shows the Hutchings Hotel (the Upper House) at the foot of Sentinel Rock.  Alternate titles of the image are more descriptive of the natural landmark: 'The Sentinel, from Hutchings Hotel' and 'The Sentinel Rock, 3270 Ft.' 

The Hutchings Hotel was on the site of the second hotel erected in Yosemite Valley, a canvas structure built by G. A. Hite in 1857.  It was replaced by a wooden building the next year, and changed ownership several times before J. M. Hutchings assumed proprietorship in 1864. Hutchings was something of a character, and he ran the hotel for the next decade, as well as the local sawmill, in partnership with John Muir.  In the Yosemite classic, A Journal of Ramblings through the High Sierras of California (reprinted by the High Sierra Classics Series, Yosemite, 1994), Joseph LeConte describes his fine repasts at the hotel in 1870. One account reads, 'Impossible to undertake the difficult ascent to the upper fall without lunch; I therefore jumped on the first horse I could find, (mine was unsaddled), and rode to Mr. Hutchings' and took a hearty lunch, to which Mr. Hutchings insisted upon adding a glass of generous California wine.'  Fortified, LeConte then commenced his ascent of Upper Yosemite Fall (LeConte, op.cit., p. 41).  

Clearly visible in the present image is a handbill for the services of Carleton Watkins, photographer, tacked to the front of the hotel.

As of this writing, Weston Naef and the Carleton Watkins Mammoth Plate Catalogue Raisonné Project locate only six other prints of this image: five in institutional collections, as well as one sold at Sotheby's New York in November 1983 (Sale 5107, Lot 286).