Lot 99
British Museum; Thompson, Stephen
[Photographs of British Museum Antiquities by Stephen Thompson]
Auction: Other Properties | Wed 25 February from 10am | Lots 63 to 255
Description
London: W.A. Mansell and Co., 1872. Parts II, IV, V and VI only (of 7), folio, full morocco gilt, gilt edges, 436 albumen print photographs (various sizes between 25-28 x 20-22cm) on card mounts (43.5 x 34.5cm) in bound volumes, each mount numbered in pencil corresponding to the numbers in the separately issued printed catalogue ('Catalogue of a Series of Photographs from the Collections of the British Museum') of the photographs of all 7 parts; consisting of: part II, vol. 1, Egyptian Antiquities, 61 prints, with manuscript inscriptions on mounts based on printed catalogue descriptions; part II, vol. 2, Egyptian Antiquities, 56 prints; part IV, vol. 1, Grecian Antiquities [including the Elgin Marbles], 102 prints; Part IV, vol. 2, Grecian Antiquities, 74 prints; part V, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities, 97 prints; part VI, Antiquities of Britain, 46 prints; bindings worn and rubbed on spines and board edges, endpapers and title pages with heavy dust soiling, individual mounts generally clean with some occasional dust soiling, slight age-related toning of prints [Gernsheim, Incunabula of British Photographic Literature, 547] (6)
Provenance
From the collections of Manchester Public Free Libraries with bookplates on endpapers and cancelled stamps on title pages and endpapers, no stamps on the individual mounts.
Footnote
Photographs were issued as individual prints and also bound in volumes as a 7-part set: part I Pre-Historic Remains of Europe and Asia, part II Egyptian, part III Assyrian, part IV Grecian, part V Etruscan and Roman Antiquities, part VI Antiquities of Britain, part VII Seals of Sovereigns, Corporations, etc.. Stephen Thompson (1830-92) was a commercial photographer hired by the British Museum to photograph its collections in the early 1870s.