Photographs

Described as “a remarkable convergence of Victorian social history and 20th century musical heritage”, a gelatin silver print of the Wiltshire thatcher Lot Long sold for £16,000 (plus 20% buyer’s premium) at Denhams in Warnham, West Sussex on February 25.

Few photographers were as explicit about the purpose of their work as Gordon Parks (1912-2006), who in 1967 described the camera as his “choice of weapon” against racism, discrimination and poverty.

This ambrotype of a California Gold Rush town sold for £1500, six times the top estimate, as part of the Winter Fine Sale at Hartleys (20% buyer’s premium) in Ilkley on November 26.

As he died more than a decade before the medium really took off, very few photographs of the American author Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) exist.

This hand-coloured daguerreotype was taken in 1856 by Rufus Anson, a New York photographer who operated a studio on Broadway from about 1851 to 1867. His address is cut into the velvet interior of the case.

A c.1891 cabinet card that captures a significant episode of both Native American and US history realised six times its low estimate at Grant Zahajko Auctions (27% buyer’s premium).

Images by American photographer Irving Penn (1917-2009), who worked with Vogue for more than six decades and is credited with turning fashion photography into an art form, are among the highlights at the latest Paris Photo.

This early original carte de visite-sized photograph depicting 11 members of the Australian cricket touring party to England 1884 was a stand-out result from an auction offering 500 items from one of the trade’s stalwart books dealers.

When the Folk Art dealer Robert Young first met Tif Hunter over 30 years ago, he was instantly drawn to the photographer’s work.

Photo included in latest Armchair catalogue captures him enjoying the good life at Glyndebourne

A rare photograph from the funeral of Victorian explorer Dr David Livingstone (1813-73) comes to auction in Essex this summer.

A signed postcard of Oscar Wilde from an image by Alfred Ellis of Baker Street impressed in a timed online sale at Cheffins (25% buyer’s premium).

Image possibly showing co-creator of the ambrotype brings major bidding battle in the US

When William John Kennedy (1930-2021) and his wife were in the process of moving house in the mid-2000s, they found a box tucked away in the back of a closet.