Important Manuscripts, Continental Books and Music

Important Manuscripts, Continental Books and Music

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 77. A, Patti, fine volume of 16 photographs of Adelina Patti in various roles, signed and inscribed by her, 1860s.

A, Patti, fine volume of 16 photographs of Adelina Patti in various roles, signed and inscribed by her, 1860s

Auction Closed

December 3, 04:27 PM GMT

Estimate

3,000 - 4,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

PATTI, ADELINA

Large album of sixteen fine carte-de-visite photographs, three signed and inscribed by Patti on verso and all captioned on the mounts ("...Martha...Don Juan...Faust [etc]"), 1860s 


showing the great soprano in various operas during the 1860s, including a frontispiece portrait, SIGNED AND INSCRIBED ("In kind remembrance of Adelina Patti. London, July 30th 1865, on the verso") and 15 fine original photographs of Patti, captioned by her throughout in Martha, Don Giovanni, Faust (3), Don Pasquale, Lucia di Lammermoor, Il barbiere di Siviglia, La sonnambula, La gazza ladra, L'elisir d'amore, Il trovatore, La figlia del reggimento, La traviata and Dinorah,    


by Charles Reutlinger of Paris, Camille Silvy of London, each c.9.5 x 5.5cm, laid down in elaborately painted card mounts in a large 4to album, that for Patti's portrait decorated with the opera titles, late nineteenth-century red calf by Schäfer of London, brass corner-pieces, title to cover and clasp ("Adelina"), porcelain central feature with hand-painted musical trophy, rebacked, small cracks to the porcelain 


This is a collection of fine photographs of Patti at the height of her early fame during the 1860s. They are crisp, original (or very early) prints from leading photographers in Paris and London, with their imprints on the verso. Camille Silvy (1834-1910) maintained a studio in Bayswater only from 1858 to 1868; Charles Reutlinger' openind his studio on Boulevard Montmartre in 1850. Patti made her début in New York in 1859 in Lucia di Lammermoor, and her Covent Garden debut in 1861 in La sonnambula. The photographs include Patti in Il barbiere di Siviglia from the time she sang 'Una voce poco fa' to Rossini at one of his famous soirées at the Rue Chaussée d'Antin. At this time, Patti possessed a light, coloratura of great purity and flexibility, ideal for the operas of Mozart, Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti.


LITERATURE:

H. Weinstock, Rossini, A Biography (1968), pp.276-277 & 306-307.