The albumen print was part of the Garrett Herman collection which provided a 160-lot selection of books to Sotheby’s most recent English literature, history, children’s books auction in London.
Herman, an investment banker from Canada, reportedly collected more than 5000 volumes of Darwin's works. It included a fine example of On the Origin of Species that sold for £130,000 at Sotheby’s.
Cameron’s photograph was one of the rarer examples of a series of portraits she made of Darwin in the summer of 1868. She took a series of pictures of Darwin when he and his family rented the photographer’s lodge in Freshwater on the Isle of Wight in the summer of 1868, where they stayed for six weeks.
During this time, his family became very attached to Cameron, and were visited by several of her friends (including poets Tennyson and Longfellow). Darwin himself believed that Cameron’s were the best photographs that had been taken of him.
The example at Sotheby’s on July 11 was pitched at £5000-7000 but, after drawing a decent bidding battle, it was eventually knocked down at £20,000.
More lots from Sotheby’s books sale feature in the Antiquarian Books section of this week’s print edition of ATG.
