The cache of 91 photographs, comprising images taken by major French and English pioneer photographers and by Craven himself, was a new discovery, kept by his descendants who consigned it to auction.
As Craven’s work had never been identified before, the emergence of a corpus of material by a newly discovered amateur photographer was, to say the least, of considerable historical interest. Now a second slice of Craven’s work has emerged from a different part of the family and will be offered for sale by Bearne’s in May.
This time it is a single album devoted solely to Craven’s work, a leather bound volume titled A record of the Earl of Craven’s photographic experiments, containing over 100 albumen prints taken at Ashdown, the Craven home, and featuring family members, views of the estate and individual tree studies. Some of the images, like the striking parterre views, replicate subjects included in the previous Craven offering, others like the fascinating self-portrait of the Earl with his camera pictured , have not been seen before.
Bearne’s are estimating the album will fetch £500,000-700,000 when it goes under the hammer on May 12. As with last year, the sale has been timed to take place immediately after the London Spring photograph sales at Sotheby’s and Christie’s, but this time Bearne’s contribution consists not of one consignment, but of a much broader, 225-lot mixed-owner selection of 19th and 20th century photographs. Moreover, it includes another potential six-figure offering – a complete set of Edward Curtis’s famous photographic tour de force, The North American Indian, estimated to fetch £400,000-600,000. The Curtis set, copy number 4, is offered for sale by the University of Exeter, to whom it was gifted in 1954. It is additionally notable for its previous royal owners (it was originally presented to Edward VII, then passed to George V) and has also been signed by Theodore Roosevelt on the forward to volume one.
The sale is also being offered on the Internet via Icollector at www.icollector.com.
First we had Craven A, now comes Craven B…
UK: West Country auctioneers Bearne’s of Exeter made headline news last May when they sold a collection of vintage 1850s photographs from William, 2nd Earl of Craven for £1.4m.
