Lot 31
  • 31

Roger Fenton

Estimate
100,000 - 150,000 USD
Log in to view results
bidding is closed

Description

  • Roger Fenton
  • 'the valley of the shadow of death'
salt print, on the original oblong folio mount, the title, number 'No. 278,' and photographer's and publisher's credits in letterpress and with a Newberry Library stamp on the mount, matted, 1855

Provenance

The Newberry Library, Chicago (an album of Crimean War views)

Sotheby's New York, 26 April 1990, Sale 6004, Lot 10

Acquired from the above by Hans P. Kraus, Jr., New York

This plate acquired by the Quillan Company from the above, 1990

Literature

Jill Quasha, The Quillan Collection of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Photographs (New York, 1991), pl. 22 (this print)

Other prints of this image:

Gordon Baldwin, Malcolm Daniel, Sarah Greenough, et al., All the Mighty World: The Photographs of Roger Fenton, 1852-1860 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004, in conjunction with the exhibition), pl. 21

Sarah Greenough, Joel Snyder, David Travis, and Colin Westerbeck, On the Art of Fixing a Shadow: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Photography (National Gallery of Art, Washington, and The Art Institute of Chicago, 1989, in conjunction with the exhibition), pl. 112

Gordon Baldwin, Roger Fenton: Pasha and Bayadère (Los Angeles: Getty Museum of Art, 1996), fig. 3

John Hannavy, Roger Fenton of Crimble Hall (Boston, 1975), pl. 16

Roger Fenton (Aperture Masters of Photography, 1987), p. 75

Roger Fenton, Photographer of the 1850s (London: Hayward Gallery, 1988, in conjunction with the exhibition), cat. 58

John Szarkowski, The Photographer's Eye (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1966), p. 43

Gordon Baldwin, Weston Naef, Katherine Ware, et al., Masterpieces of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Photographs (Los Angeles: Getty Museum of Art, 1999), pl. 6

A Book of Photographs from the Collection of Sam Wagstaff (New York, 1978, in conjunction with the exhibition originating at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C.), p. 21

Photography: the first eighty years (London, 1976, in conjunction with the exhibition), pl. 47

Robin Kelsey, Archive Style: Photographs & Illustrations for U. S. Surveys, 1850 - 1890 (Berkeley, 2007), fig. 34, p. 86

Condition

Grading this salt print on a scale of 1 to 10 - a 10 being a print with rich, deep brown dark tones, and highlights that retain all of their original detail - this print rates a 10. The photograph's tones are a rich red-brown. The print delivers a great amount of detail, especially in the foreground. The print is very clean and is essentially in excellent condition. There is a small dark spot in upper left portion of the sky (visible in the catalogue illustration) that appears to be due to an imperfection in paper. The large thick paper mount is mostly clean, aside from some very minor scattered foxing and some light soiling on the extremities.
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.

Catalogue Note

Taken in 1855 during the Crimean campaign, in which England had allied itself with France and Turkey against Russia, The Valley of the Shadow of Death records a desolate landscape littered with cannonballs.  The photograph's title is sometimes mistakenly credited to Tennyson's 1854 poem, The Charge of the Light Brigade, with its recurring use of the phrase, 'into the valley of death.'  The title, however, reflects instead the Twenty-third Psalm, 'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.'  The site of the photograph, a no-man's land between opposing sides, was referred to as the Valley of Death by those who fought there. 

Published by Thomas Agnew & Sons in 1856, Fenton's Crimean images are among the earliest war photographs ever made.  Most of his work there--the photographs of British officers and troops, their life in camp, and the rolling hills of the Crimea--do not hint of the death and destruction that took place.  It is only the Valley of the Shadow of Death that speaks eloquently of suffering and loss, without revealing it.  As such, it is one of the most memorable pictures of war ever created.          

Educated as a lawyer, Fenton studied painting in London.  Then, like Gustave Le Gray (Lot 40), Henri Le Secq, and Edouard-Denis Baldus (Lot 44), he went on to train in the studio of French academic painter Paul Delaroche.  He was a founding member of the Royal Photographic Society in 1853.  He went on to become one of the best-known British photographers of the nineteenth century, working in architectural and landscape photography, Orientalist subjects, still life, and portraiture, including commissions from Queen Victoria and the Royal family.

The print offered here comes originally from an album of photographs of Fenton Crimean studies owned by the Newberry Library of Chicago, sold in these rooms in the spring of 1990.