Photographs

London exhibition outlines how French photographers started to cover a changing world

Overseas interest in tribal art and Doulton Lambeth wares fuelled the higher prices at Cuttlestones’ (20% buyer’s premium) Penkridge sale but it was a new outbreak of cardomania which raised temperatures of collectors across England.

Pictured here is one of two very successful lots relating to the career of Houdini that were sold in a Chicago auction.

Gustave Le Gray’s 'Souvenirs du Camp de Châlons' sold at Phillips in London.

Perhaps the most famous 21st century image of Queen Elizabeth II is the photographic portrait taken by Canadian artist Chris Levine (b.1960) showing the monarch with her eyes closed.

Man Ray’s 'Le Violon d’Ingres' has set a new record for a photograph, selling for $10.5m (£8m) at Christie’s in New York.

Three upcoming UK book auctions

'Bewegungsstudie', or ‘Study of Movement’, by Rudolf Koppitz, is the most famous of six tipped-in photogravures, each with a protective glassine sheet, that make up Pictures from the Tyng Collection, a 1931 publication of the Royal Photographic Society.

The Modern British Art sale at Woolley & Wallis on May 31 offers family photographs that come by descent from the war poet Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967).

Potter & Potter’s early spring signature Circus, Sideshow and Oddities Sale in Chicago features a collection of photographs of such subjects, plus theatrical images, amassed by collector and historian Gary Bart.

This 19th century albumen print is by the pioneering French photographer Gustave le Gray (1820-84).

The 19th & 20th Century Photography sale at Dominic Winter on May 18 includes several works by Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-79).

On June 13 the Paris auction house Millon is selling items from the collection of Lili Grenier, celebrated artist’s model and muse and friend of some of the most famous artists of the late 19th century including Edgar Degas and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

Two transatlantic spring fairs bring the twin collecting areas of historical photography and photographica into focus in the spring.

British photographer Bert Hardy (1913-95) is best remembered for his contributions to Picture Post, the UK’s pioneering photojournalistic magazine of the mid-20th century.

These two salt prints from waxed paper negatives by Roger Fenton (1819-69) carry an estimate of £1000-2000 at Cheffins in Cambridge on April 28.

The photographica department at Chiswick Auctions will be taking over the firm’s South Kensington gallery for the duration of May when highlights from the 19th & 20th Century Photography sale on May 24 will be on view.