4099 - Watkins, Carleton E.

Watkins, Carleton E. (Attribued to). El Capitan, 3,300 ft., Yo-Semite Valley, No. 7. 1865-66. Mammoth-plate albumen print, printed ca. 1872, mounted to original board. 51,8 x 40 cm (mount 71,2 x 55,7 cm). With printed title, number and publisher’s imprint beneath the image: “Thomas Houseworth & Co.” and “No. 9 Montgomery St. San Francisco.” A leading photographer of the American West, Carleton E. Watkins created his celebrated Yosemite views during expeditions of 1861 and 1865-66, using a custom mammoth-plate camera to record the valley’s monumental formations with extraordinary detail. Watkins’s early Yosemite photographs helped shape public appreciation of the region in the years surrounding the 1864 Yosemite Grant, the legislative precursor to the National Park System. Houseworth’s later issue under its own name demonstrates the broad commercial circulation of Watkins’s Yosemite views, whose large-format clarity established a defining nineteenth-century image of the American West. – Mount with bumped edges, some chipping at the corners, slight foxing and time-staining along the edges; print with light foxing in the sky area and a few light surface scuff marks and scratches, only visible when viewed at an angle; otherwise a strong, evenly toned print in near excellent condition.