Description:
81 albumen prints on carte de visite mounts, inserted two per page in the original calf CDV album, brass clasps. Rubbed. Excellent condition overall.This is likely the most important extant Charles Darwin family photograph album. The scientist's wife Emma Darwin evidently assembled this well-preserved album of cartes de visite and has identified almost all of the sitters with initials or names on the album mounts.
The dazzling array of sitters includes Charles Darwin, his wife Emma, all seven of their children who reached maturity, a grandchild, and other relations from both family lines, the Darwins and the Wedgwoods. The families of some of Darwin's principal scientific peers are also represented including Huxley, Galton, Lyell, Hooker, Haeckel, Henslow, and more.
This album also collects important photographs known from Darwin's correspondence to have been sent to the naturalist. Their whereabouts or survival has been unknown until now. For example, the photographs of German scientist Ernst… Read More