Latest news with #historicalphotography
BBC News
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
'Yard sale' book showcasing the Broads goes under the hammer
A rare book of historical black-and-white images of the Norfolk Broads discovered during a house clearance in America will go under the hammer in London on Thursday."Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads" was published in 1886 by the pioneering Victorian photographer Peter Henry Emerson and artist Thomas Frederick Goodall. The volume is a first edition - one of only 25 deluxe copies produced when the artists visited the waterways - and comprises 40 platinum prints mounted on India Wallis, head of sale at auctioneers Roseberys said the book - expected to fetch up to £50,000 - was an "exciting find" in "remarkable condition". The anonymous Maryland seller of the book said it was found in their 98-year-old mother's home, buried in the back of her wardrobe. They said: "She and my dad were avid 'yard salers', always looking for little treasures."They also collected first editions of popular books so we can only surmise that this was another one of their treasured finds." Emerson (1856–1936) was born in Cuba and raised partly in America, before settling in photography often focused on the everyday life of people in East Anglia. The book contains a series of platinum prints, mounted on India paper and would have been very expensive to make. The photographer inspired his great-grandson, Stephen Hyde, to become a photographer. Mr Hyde said the book represented a "love letter to Norfolk"."He (Emerson) had a profound connection to nature, and that tenderness comes through in these photographs," he said. "I'd love to own this book myself, but it belongs in a museum." Mr Wallis said Emerson was trying to elevate the new technology of photography into an art said it would appeal to a range of buyers. "It'd be fantastic if it could make its way back to Norfolk, to a private buyer interested in 19th Century photography."It's a really important piece of photographic history and of Norfolk so could also be an institution, a museum or an art gallery, or possibly even just a private collector who buys it." While 175 copies of the book were published covered in green cloth, this book is one of only 25 covered in estimate of £30,000 to £50,000 ($40,000–$67,000) has been put on the book which will be auctioned on Thursday. Follow Norfolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Reuters
28-05-2025
- General
- Reuters
Harvard to relinquish slave photos to resolve descendant's lawsuit
BOSTON, May 28 (Reuters) - Harvard University has agreed to give up ownership of photos of an enslaved father and his daughter who were forced to be photographed in 1850 for a racist study by a professor trying to prove the inferiority of Black people to resolve a lawsuit by one of their descendants. The settlement was announced on Wednesday by the legal team representing Tamara Lanier, who had waged a six-year legal battle over what she alleged was its wrongful claim of ownership over photos that were taken without her ancestors' consent. The two photos will not go to Lanier as part of the settlement, but instead will be turned over along with pictures of five other enslaved people to the International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina. The settlement was first reported by the New York Times and confirmed by a spokesperson for Lanier's legal team. Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Harvard did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The settlement comes at a sensitive moment for Harvard, as the university fights in court against efforts by Republican President Donald Trump's administration to terminate billions of dollars in grant funding and end its ability to enroll foreign students. The lawsuit, opens new tab concerned images that depict Renty Taylor and his daughter Delia, slaves on a South Carolina plantation who were forced to disrobe for photos taken for a racist study by Harvard Professor Louis Agassiz. The photos were being kept at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology on Harvard's campus when Lanier, a descendant of Taylor, sued in 2019. A state court judge in Massachusetts initially dismissed the case. But the state's highest court revived it in 2022, saying she had plausibly alleged that Harvard was negligent and had recklessly caused her to suffer emotional distress. Justice Scott Kafker, writing for the court at the time, said Harvard had "cavalierly" dismissed Lanier's claims of an ancestral link and disregarded her requests for information about how it was using the images, including when the school used Renty Taylor's image on a book cover. He said Harvard's complicity in the "horrific" creation of the pictures meant it had "responsibilities to the descendants of the individuals coerced into having their half-naked images captured in the daguerreotypes."
