Carleton E. Watkins

mammoth-plate albumen print, mounted, annotated in an unidentified hand in ink on the reverse, matted, 1867

Other prints of this image:

James Alinder, David Featherstone, and Russ Anderson, Carleton E. Watkins: Photographs of the Columbia River and Oregon (Friends of Photography and The Weston Gallery, 1979), pl. 39

Carleton E. Watkins: Photographs (Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, 1989, in conjunction with the exhibition), pl. 99

Daniel Wolf, The American Space: Meaning in Nineteenth-Century Landscape Photography (Middletown, Connecticut, 1983), pl. 14

Grading this albumen print on a scale of 1 to 10 – a 10 being an albumen print that has rich dark tones and highlights that retain all of their original detail – this print rates a 10. The dark tones are a deep reddish-brown bordering on black, and the highlights an unsullied cream color. The print is essentially in excellent condition. When the print is examined very closely in raking light, a very faint vertical scuff can be seen running from the top of the print to just below the horizon. This is not immediately apparent and is only visible upon close examination. The dark spot visible in the river in the right part of the photograph may be old retouching. Just to the left of this is a very faint one-inch linear indentation that does not break the emulsion. Four and one half inches below the center of the photograph is a circular indentation in the print's surface, about .4cm in diameter. Neither of these indentations breaks the emulsion. These condition issues are insignificant and in no way undermine the fine appearance of this print. The print is mounted to smooth, stiff, cream-colored board that shows minor edge wear and has some very light occasional soiling. There is faint age-darkening along the left edge. None of this encroaches upon the image. The dimensions of the mount are 20 ¾ by 27 inches.
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Watkins photographed Mt. Adams, the second highest peak in what is now Washington State, from near the town of The Dalles, roughly 80 miles east of Portland on the Columbia River.  Like Mt. Hood (see Lot 37), Mt. Adams is a volcanic mountain and, as such, would have been of interest to Josiah Dwight Whitney, leader of the California State Geological Survey and a financer of Watkins's Oregon trip.  Both Adams and Hood are stratovolcanos, composed of many layers of solidified lava from successive eruptions.  Nearby Mt. St. Helens, as well as Japan's Mt. Fuji, are stratovocanos, and share the same wide base and sloped sides characteristic of this type.  

Watkins took this view from Sunset Hill, an elevation outside The Dalles.  This seems to have been a favored vantage point for the photographer, as he took at least one other mammoth-plate view from here, Mt. Hood From Sunset Hill.   Watkins Pacific Coast stereo views 1305, 1306, and 1318 through 1320 are all made from Sunset Hill. 

Weston Naef and the Carleton Watkins Mammoth Plate Catalogue Raisonné Project have located 7 other prints of this image in institutional collections, and one other in a private collection.