1. VITTORIO SELLA. Dent D'Herens, from Col d'Herens, 11,415 feet, c. 1879-1892, Sella number AV 260. 11.2x15" collodion print, printed c. 1893, mounted on 16 1/4x12 1/8" heavy brown board. Inscribed in ink on mount recto: 260. Dent d'Hernes, from Col d'Herens, 11,415 ft.; inscribed in pencil: V; inscribed in blue pencil: A; Stamped in ink on mount verso: Depose / Tous Droits Reserves / V. Stella - Biella.

2. VITTORIO SELLA. Dent D'Herens, from Tiefenmattenfoch, at 11,480 feet, c. 1879-1892, Sella number AV 120. 11.3x15" collodion print, printed c. 1893, mounted on 16 3/8x12" heavy brown board. Inscribed in ink on mount recto: 120. Dent d'Hernes, from Tiefenmatterfoch at 11480 ft.; inscribed in pencil: partially missing due to mount board loss; inscribed in blue pencil: (partially missing); Stamped in ink on mount verso: Depose / Tous Droits Reserves / V. Stella - Biella; inscribed in pencil: Alps V.

The Dent D'Herens is located west side of the Matterhorn, along the Italy-Switzerland border. It is an incredibly beautiful mountain, that can be reached by one of the wildest valleys in the region and the watershed between the Valtournenche and Valpelline. On the Swiss side, the mountain overlooks the Zmutt Glacier.

According to Charles Fay, writing in the 1893 AMC Bulletin, Vittorio Sella was born in the Piedmont Region of Biella, northern Italy in 1859, in sight of the outliers of the Alps. His father, Venanzio Guiseppe Sella, was a woolen manufacturer who ran textile mills called Lanificio Maurzio Sella, which had been in the family for hundreds of years. The son seems to have inherited his father's versatility, for Venanzio Sella not only authored a standard work on woolen manufacture, but also published a treatise in 1856 on the then-new art of photography, which was translated into German and French and incorporated in Roret's Encyclopedic.

Sella's uncle, Quintino Sella, was a famous Italian minister of finance and founder of the Italian Alpine Club. It was he who taught the boy to love the mountains by taking the fifteen-year-old Sella on his first ascent in 1874, followed by another a year later.

Sella's negatives ranged in size from the standard 30 x 40 cm (approximately 11 x 15.5"), 12 x 20 cm, (8 x 10"), and 24 x 30 cm (9 x 12"). He also used stereoscopic and handheld Kodak cameras. By the time of the Turin exhibition, he was enlarging his prints. The most celebrated of his work were the multi-plate panoramas which would comprise much of the AMC collection.

1. 260 Good to very Good: Corner wear, missing corner upper left, abrasions, rub marks and dirt. Mount is dirty with torn corners and edges.

2. 120 Good: Abrasions, wear, rub marks, spots and dirt. Mount has tattered and missing corners and edges, dirt and marks.