1. VITTORIO SELLA. Matterhorn and Dent D'Herens (at sunset), from moraine of Ober-Theodul Glacier, c. 1879-1892, Sella number AV 407. 11.2x14.9" collodion print, printed c. 1893, flush mounted on thin board, mounted on 15 7/8x12 1/4" grey board. Inscribed in ink on mount recto: Alps Matterhorn and (407) Dent d'Herens V; inscribed in pencil on mount verso: Loan 51 (circled) / Matterhorn + Dent d'Herens illegible; inscribed in ink: Matterhorn - Alps; inscribed in blue pencil: 407.

2. VITTORIO SELLA. Matterhorn, from the base of the Riffelhorn, on Gorner Glacier, c. 1879-1892, Sella number AV 410. 15.4x11.2" collodion print, printed c. 1893, flush mounted on thin board, mounted on 12 1/8x15 3/4" grey board. Inscribed in ink on mount recto: Alps 410 Matterhorn AV; inscribed in pencil on mount verso: Matterhorn / from the base of Riffelhorn / Loan 52 (circled); Inscribed in blue pencil: 410/ AVI.

This sale of lots from this auction will directly benefit the Appalachian Mountain Club White Mountain Trails, Research Department and the Club Archive.

Ansel Adams paid tribute to Sella's greatness in a 1946 article for the Sierra Club Bulletin when he wrote, "with Sella's sensitive insight and response the magnificence of mountains is distilled into a high order of expression".

"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.

1. 407 Good to Very Good: Wear, marks, abrasions dirt, edge and corner wear. Mount has tears, missing corners and edges, dirt and marks.
2. 410 Fair: 3/4" of upper L corner of backing tattered; 3/8" tear in lower R edge of backing; 410 on lower L corner of print; print very dirty.