Lot 58
  • 58

Gertrude Käsebier

Estimate
20,000 - 30,000 USD
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Description

  • Gertrude Käsebier
  • SERBONNE
  • Platinum print
warm-toned platinum print, circa 1902 (Camera Work Number 1; Michaels, pl. 59)

Literature

 

Condition

This warm-toned platinum paper is on heavy paper with a very smooth finish. The print is essentially in excellent condition. There is some minor wear on the edges of the print, which is trimmed to the image. When the print is viewed very closely in raking light, several inconsequential linear scuffs can be seen on the surface. There is nothing to undermine the overwhelmingly fine appearance of this rich and lovely print.
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 during Gertrude Käsebier's European trip of 1901, Serbonne shows the artist Frances Delehanty, the art student Charlotte Smith, and Käsebier's daughter Hermine seated on the grass, while the dandyish Edward Steichen stands to the left.   Käsebier authority Barbara Michaels has noted the composition’s debt to French and Italian painting, in particular Manet’s Le déjeuner sur l’herbe, a celebrated painting of the day, and Titian’s Concert champêtre in the Louvre (Gertrude Käsebier: The Photographer and Her Photographs, p. 84).  Steichen had come to Paris the year before to establish himself as a painter, and he entertained Käsebier and her young charges with picnics, visits to museums, and drawing and photographing sessions.  In August, Käsebier wrote back to Alfred Stieglitz in New York that they were all having a 'double superlative time in Paris . . . with Steichen every day and how I have enjoyed him.  He is a corker!' (ibid., p. 83).

Michaels notes that the image was included in a number of important exhibitions in Käsebier’s lifetime, among them ones at the Pennsylvania Academy in 1906, Buffalo’s Albright Art Gallery in 1910, and Käsebier's 1929 retrospective at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Science.  It was one of six of the photographer’s images selected for Camera Work Number 1, the ‘Käsebier number.’

At the time of this writing, five prints of this image, all in the vertical format offered here, have been located in institutional collections: the George Eastman House, The Museum of Modern Art, the Library of Congress, the National Gallery of Art, Ottawa, and the Art Institute of Chicago.