They will be run by Arnaud Delas, the specialist Parisian dealer in photographs with a particular interest in 19th and 20th century themes of travel, exploration, science, portraiture and nudes.
The first sale will be held exclusively online under the title Arnaud Delas: Photographs, on November 25.
One highlight will be a group of 15 early albumen prints of Egypt from paper negatives c.1855 by Robert Murray, which will carry an estimate of £1200-1500.
Now resident in the UK, Delas believes that the collectables market in photographs, such as 19th century photographic call cards and stereographic images, has a lot of scope online, not least with the well-publicised interest of Queen guitarist Brian May in Victorian stereophotography, examples of which will be shown alongside the 12 paintings they were inspired by at Tate Britain this October.
Delas has made significant discoveries in his career, including a previously unknown image of Arthur Rimbaud taken at Sheikh Othman c.1883, and recently catalogued the important photographic collection (for a French auction house for whom he is a consultant) of paper negatives by Felix Teynard from his expedition to Egypt 1851-52.
A single image from this group achieved €155,000 at auction recently.
Delas joins Matthew Barton (silver, objects of virtue and ceramics), Charles Miller (maritime and scientific works and objects of art), Arthur Millner (Indian and Islamic art) and Harry Moore-Gwyn (pictures) at Blythe Road, which was established by Thomas Del Mar in 2007 as a hub for traditional auction disciplines.
All those specialists have worked at one time for either Sotheby's or Christie's.
