1. VITTORIO SELLA. La Grande Ruine, Pic Bourcet, from near the Chatelleret Refuge, c. 1879-1892, Sella number AI 489. 11.3x15.2" collodion print, printed c. 1893, mounted on 12x16.5" brown board. Inscribed in ink on mount recto: 489. / La Grande Ruine, Pic Bourcet, etc. / from near the Chatelleret Refuge; inscribed in blue pencil: A / I. Stamped in black ink on mount verso: Depose / Tous Droits Reserves / V. Sella - Biella.

2. VITTORIO SELLA. Barre des Ecrines, La Gande Ruine, Pic Bourcet. From the Pyramide Duhamel, c. 1879-1892, Sella number AI 502. 11.4x15.4" collodion print, printed c. 1893, mounted on 12.1x16.75" brown board. Inscribed in ink on mount recto: 502. / Barre des Ecrins, La Grande Ruine, Pic Bourcet / from the Pyramid Duhamel; inscribed in blue pencil: A / I. Stamped in black ink on mount verso: Depose / Tous Droits Reserves / V. Sella - Biella.

La Grande Ruine is 3,754 m 12,316 feet.

"Sella's photography was accomplished using orthochromatic plates which are sensitive to all colors of light except those of the red regions of the spectrum. Skies were rendered light gray, and foliage medium gray; atmospheric space was well recorded, and as there was little red in the general subject matter, "panchromatic" materials would have offered slight advantage. Color filters were undoubtedly used to reduce the values of the sky and to bring snow and clouds into vigorous relief." -Ansel Adams

By the early 1890s the idea that photographs could be artistic was commonplace, though most artists, including the young Alfred Stieglitz, held that they should be "painterly," soft-focused pictures representing nostalgic, sentimental and romantic qualities. Running parallel to this "pictorial" sensibility were the sharp focused views made by exploration photographers like Sella who was striving to capture geological and geographical verisimilitude through powerfully composed crisp pictures. By 1910 photographers like Stieglitz and Paul Strand began to shift away from pictorial imagery in favor of more documentary, unsentimental, hard edged pictures with a "modernist" sensibility, very like the pictures that Sella had been producing all along. Artistically, Sella was ahead of his time since he had an eye for the abstract masses of mountains, as well as the details of escarpments and glaciers.

1. Good: Moderate wear, abrasions, corner and edge wear. Mount has corner and edge wear, marks and dirt.

2. Good: Moderate wear, abrasions, corner and edge wear. Mount has corner and edge wear, marks and dirt.