Personal items from legendary sharpshooter Annie Oakley to be auctioned March 18

1926 check handwritten and hand-signed by Annie Oakley Butler, her married name

CLEARWATER, Fla. – On March 18, 2023, Blackwell Auctions will offer several items personally owned by Annie Oakley, including an engraved carriage clock gifted to her for her birthday during her European tour in 1901. Several other items will also be offered, including 16 books that were owned – and, in some cases, signed – by Oakley, including a book inscribed to her husband by the author, bandleader John Philip Sousa. The collection also boasts a personal check, signed by Oakley shortly before her death, made out to her niece.

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Smithsonian acquires stellar early American photography collection

Unidentified artist, ‘Untitled (family, painted backdrop),’ undated, tintype. Smithsonian American Art Museum, the L. J. West Collection of Early American Photography, Museum purchase made possible through the Franz H. and Luisita L. Denghausen Endowment
Unidentified artist, ‘Untitled (family, painted backdrop),’ undated, tintype. Smithsonian American Art Museum, the L. J. West Collection of Early American Photography, Museum purchase made possible through the Franz H. and Luisita L. Denghausen Endowment

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) has acquired a collection of objects related to early American photography from the collector Larry J. West that transforms the museum’s photography holdings. The L.J. West Collection includes 286 objects from the 1840s to about 1925 in three groupings: works by early African American daguerreotypists James P. Ball, Glenalvin Goodridge and Augustus Washington; early photographs of diverse portrait subjects and objects related to abolitionists, the Underground Railroad and the role of women entrepreneurs in it; and photographic jewelry that represents the bridge between miniature painting and early cased photography such as daguerreotypes, ambrotypes and tintypes.

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