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• Issue #165
• Article

Bassenge Photography Auctions is holding its final sale for the year on Dec. 2, 2009 in Berlin at 3 pm local time. The auction will offer 450 photography and photography book lots.

There is a wide selection of quality 19th-century material. An exceptionally rare and important daguerreotype from 1848 by the German photographer Carl Ferdinand Stelzner shows the freedom fighter Harro Harring in a dramatic pose (15,000 euro). Not only is the photographer one of the finest and earliest German daguerreotypists; the sitter's biography was connected to many important historical figures such as Garibaldi, Ypsilanti, C.D. Friedrich, Margaret Fuller and Alexander H. Everett. Several large-format Alinari Italian views--both albumen and salt prints--from the 1850s are moderately estimated between 500-900 euro.

Other 19th-century items include: selected ethnographic studies of natives of Papua New Guinea and Indonesia by Woodbury & Page (600-900 euro) as well as an early and rare four-part salt print panorama of Canton from 1863 by Dutton & Michaels (6000 euro), a five-part panoramic view of Shanghai, circa 1865 (1200 euro), an attractive album of hand-colored Japanese albumen prints (1500 euro), several salt prints (some also lightly albumenized) by James Robertson of mosques and people in Constantinople and circa 1854, as well as a very strong salt print by Robertson & Beato of the Fountain of the Court of Yeni Cami, circa 1854 (2200 euro). Also in the sale is an unusual 1857 still-life of three decorated guns by important and early Austrian photographer Andreas Groll.

Other 19th-century photographers with work on offer include: Edouard-Denis Baldus, Bisson frères, Disdéri, Maxime Du Camp, Francis Frith, Wilhelm von Gloeden, Wilhelm Hammerschmidt, Philippos Margaritis, Carl Friedrich Mylius, Carlo Naya, Guglielmo Plüschow, F.A. Rinehart, J. Pascal Sebah and P. Joaillier, Giorgio Sommer, and Baron Raimund von Stillfried.

Highlights of the 20th-century section include several vintage prints by Brassai from the 1930s (each about 3000-4000 euro), two unique life-size vintage nudograms by Floris M. Neusüss (each 10,000 euro) as well as smaller photograms by the same photographer (3000 euro). A separate section is devoted to early color photography including rare color slides of Paris under German occupation in 1940, interior views of the shows at the Folies Bergère, as well as Smolensk and Warsaw in 1941. Weegee's well-preserved vintage Three-eyed Cat (1800 euro) is a strange und unique image and a rare nude montage by W. Grancel Fitz (2600 euro) is equally unusual and appealing.

A unique mixed-media collage, "Begegnung!" 1934, by the Bauhaus artist Otto Hofmann, is estimated at 7500 euro. Several iconic images of the fotoform photographer Peter Keetman (1000-1800 euro) are also being offered. Joel Meyerowitz's vintage color print "McDonald's, St. Louis" (1978) is estimated at 3000 euro. Winter motifs include Martin Munkacsi 's vintage Ice Skaters, circa 1930 (7000 euro), Paul Outerbridge's "The Night Before Christmas" a vintage platinum print from1924 (9000 euro), and an anonymous early color print of Marilyn Monroe in red satin negligee deorated with a reindeer, which appeared in "Marilyn Monroe and the Camera".

Other important 20th-century photographers and subjects include: Ansel Adams, Rudolf Auer, Wilfried Bauer,Willi Baumeister, Max Baur, Herbert Bayer, Eva Besynö, Aenne Biermann, Ilse Bing, Günter Blum, Jan Bulhak, Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Lucien Clergue, Michel Comte, Imogen Cunningham, André de Dienes, D'Ora, Frantisek Drtikol, Harold Edgerton, Elliott Erwitt, Louis Faurer, Andreas Feininger, Arno Fischer,W. Grancel Fitz, Mario Giacomelli, Nan Goldin, Greg Gorman, Dan Graham, Philippe Halsman, Sam Haskins, Heinrich Heidersberger, George Hurrell, Graciela Iturbide, Lotte Jacobi, Karol Charles Kállay, Yousuf Karsh, André Kertész, Alexander Khlebnikov, Douglas Kirkland, Jürgen Klauke, Heinrich Koch, Rudolf Koppitz, Jan Lauschman, Lehenrt & Landrock, Herbert List, Manassé, Man Ray, Werner Mantz, Boris Mikhailov, Jean Moral, NASA, Detlef Orlopp, Heinz von Perckhammer, Eliot Porter, Len Prince, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Leni Riefenstahl, Albert Rudomine, Sebastiao Salgado, August Sander, Howard Schatz, Lawrence Schiller, Max Schirner,Toni Schneiders, Julius Shulman, Jeanloup Sieff, Aaron Siskind, Peter Stackpole, Anton Stankowski, André Steiner, Otto Steinert, Bert Stern, Louis Stettner, Dennis Stock, Alex Stöcker, Sasha Stone, Wolf Strache, Karl Struss, Jock Sturges, Josef Sudek, Antanas Sutkus, John Swannell, Karin Székessy, Herbert Tobias, Umbo, Josef Vorisek, Edward Weston, Ludwig Windstosser, Reinhart Wolf, Wols, X-ray photography, Yva and Willy Zielke.

Among the contemporary photographers in the sale are: Dieter Appelt, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Nan Goldin, Stefan Koppel kamm, Cathleen Naundorf, Bettina Rheims, Hans Martin Sewcz and Wim Wenders.

The photography books include: Dieter Appelt's "Monte Isola", Lewis Baltz's "Park City", Karl Blossfeldt's "Urformen der Kunst" and "Wunder der Natur", Germaine Krull's "Der Akt" and Duchenne de Boulogne's "Mecanisme de la Physionomie".

The auction is being held on Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009. "The 19th-century to contemporary photographs and photography books sale begins at 3 pm and will be held at Bassenge Photoauktionen, Erdenerstr. 5a, 14193 Berlin, tel.: +49 30 893 80 29 0; fax: + 49 30 891 8025; email: art@bassenge.com .

The auction previews will be held at Bassenge Photoauktionen, Rankestr. 24, 10789 Berlin, tel.: +49 30 219 97 277 from Nov. 23-Nov. 30, from 10 am-6 pm, and on Dec. 1, from 10 am-4 pm, as well as by appointment.

Jennifer Augustyniak is the Photographs Specialist. She can be reached by phone at: +49 (0)30 21 99 72 77; mobile: +49 (0)173 625 39 33; and fax: +49 (0)30 21 99 71 05; or by email at jennifer@bassenge.com . You can view the online version of the catalogue at: http://www.bassenge.com/bassenge/en/photo.asp ; just scroll down to the photograph auction catalogue at the bottom of this page.