VITTORIO SELLA. Kang La Panorama Kabur (HS 167); Range N. of Kang La Panorama from Kabur (HS 168); Kabru and Kangchenjunga Panorama from Kabur (HS 169); Simvu and Pandim Panorama from Kabur (HS 170); Jubonu Panorama from Kabur (HS 171); Narsing Panorama from Kabur HS 172).; 1899, Sella numbers HS 167-172. 7x39", 6 collodion prints, printed 1901, mounted on 9x43.7" heavy brown board. Embossed with Vittorio Sella stamp in lower right of print of Panel 6 HS 172. Inscribed in black ink on mount recto panel 6 HS 172: Kangchenjinga Range/ from the top of Kabur, about 15800 feet. Inscribed in pencil on mount recto panel 1 HS 167: 167-172. Inscribed in pencil on mount verso panel 1: HS 167-172. Other panels have pencil inscription numbers of the HS number. The mounts of prints are taped on mount verso.

Kangchenjinga Range from the top of Kabur, about 15800 feet.

Vittorio Sella (1859-1943) was the leading large-format mountaineering photographer of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, renowned for his spectacular high-altitude photographs of glacial floes, peaks, and valleys. Sella traveled the world, photographing in the European Alps, the Caucasus, Mt. Saint Elias (Alaska Yukon Border), and the Himalayan Sikkim. In the early 1900s he photographed mountains in the Africa Ruwanzari and the Himalayan Karakoram.
"My object, as I have already said, was to make the tour - to use an Alpine phrase, ' the High-level Tour' - of Kangchenjunga, passing as near the great mountain as might prove to be possible. This circuit had never been accomplished by any European. Sir Joseph Hooker came nearest to it fifty years ago" p. 20. "To get round Kangchenjunga was not, therefore, the only object I set before me. I hoped also to be able to obtain, what the Indian Survey had been too fully employed elsewhere to be able to give geographers, a fairly accurate general delineation of the main glacial features of the group, and some material for comparing them with those of the Alps and the Caucasus. I trusted to be able to ascertain the number and length of the trunk ice- streams, to form an approximate estimate of the amount of ground covered by snow and ice, and to recognize any peculiarities that might distinguish the glaciers of Sikhim [sic] from those of more temperate regions." p. 29 Round Kangchenjunga: A Narrative of Mountain Travel and Exploration, by Douglas Freshfield, London, Edward Arnold 1903.

Sella worked in all four seasons and under the most difficult circumstances, documenting the highest regions of the earth with extraordinary artistry. 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."

His groundbreaking works of art from the Alps, the Caucasus, Africa, Alaska, and the Himalayas influenced Victorian aesthetics, and furthered scientific studies in the fields of anthropology, cartography, meteorology, and botany, and currently are used extensively in studies of glacial retreat.

Although small in stature (only 5 foot 6 inches, today he would be considered an elite athlete) Sella possessed tremendous strength and endurance. He carried heavy, large-format cameras and glass plates, scaled treacherous slopes, worked in challenging weather conditions, and endured storage conditions that sometimes ruined his negatives. He made photographs with both stereoscopic and handheld Kodak cameras, afterward enlarging his prints by various means. His masterful compositions of sublime peaks captured crisp details and the vast array of tonal ranges enhanced by high-altitude light and shadow. His most celebrated works are large, multi-plate panoramas.

Very Good: Overall minor wear, edge and corner wear, medium edge wear where panels join, prints lifting, wrinkled, HS 167 has vertical abrasions from folding against another panel. Mount has corner and edge wear tears, marks, tape marks mount verso.