VITTORIO SELLA. Mont Blanc, from northwest ridge of Dent du Geant below the Auguille Noire (148); Mont Maudit and Mont Blanc Du Tacul (149), c. 1879-1892, Sella numbers AIII 148-149. 11.3x28.5" collodion print, printed c. 1893, mounted on 12x30 1/4" brown board.

1. Inscribed in ink on mount recto: Alps 148 Mont Blanc.; Inscribed in pencil on mount recto: 6 1/4"/ bis; Stamped in ink on mount verso: Depose / Tous droits - reserves / V. Sella - Biella; inscribed in ink on mount verso: Alpi/ No 148-149/ Mt. Blanc
2. Inscribed in ink on mount recto: 149. Mont Maudit and Mont Blanc du Jacul. III; Inscribed in pencil on mount recto: From Northwest ridge of Dent du Geant below the Auguille Noire; Print recto embossed with artist's credit stamp in bottom right corner.

The Mont Blanc massif (French: Massif du Mont-Blanc; Italian: Massiccio del Monte Bianco) is a mountain range in the Alps, located mostly in France and Italy, but also straddling Switzerland at its northeastern end. It contains eleven major independent summits, each over 4,000 metres (13,123 ft) in height. It is named after Mont Blanc that is 4,808 metres 15,774 ft with a prominence of 4696m 15,405 ft. is the 11 largest in the world Mt. Blanc is the highest point in western Europe and the European Union. Because of its considerable overall altitude, a large proportion of the massif is covered by glaciers, which include the Mer de Glace and the Miage Glacier - the longest glaciers in France and Italy, respectively. It stands between the Aosta Valley, Italy and Savoie and Haute-Savoie, France.

"Sella's photography was accomplished using orthochromatic plates which are sensitive to all colors of light except those of the red regions of the specter. 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.

Good: Moderate abrasions, vertical abrasion left, edges worn, wear, dirty,edge. Edges lifting where panels meet. Mount on panel one missing pieces fragile, torn marks.