Photographs

Compact Paris exhibition includes 19 works with a ‘super provenance’ to the artist’s wife

Commissioned by the 'Illustrated London Times' to document the construction of the mighty Great Eastern, the young photographer Robert Howlett (1831-58) took some of the most famous images of ship’s designer Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-59).

Found in a cigar box during an attic clearance and taken to Exeter auction house Bearnes, Hampton & Littlewood (25% buyer’s premium), seven framed daguerreotypes in poor condition provided one of the better sleepers of the year on November 22-23.

Staging a photo collection sale just as a specialist fair opened proved a great choice.

Paris auction Ader (28% buyer’s premium) was busy on the photographic front during Paris Photo.

A rediscovered album of 19 cartes de visite portrait photographs documenting Charles Darwin’s changing visage over three decades sold for £126,000.

'Paris Photo', the French capital’s annual fair dedicated to photography, holds its 25th edition at the Grand Palais Ephémère from November 10-13.

An album of 19 carte de visite portrait photographs of Charles Darwin is offered in Reeman Dansie’s Fine Art auction on November 8-9.

An exceptionally early album of calotype photographs sold for £68,000 (plus 25% buyer’s premium) at Lyon & Turnbull on September 28.

Estimated at £3000-4000, this 9½ x 12in (24 x 30.5cm) albumen print by Julia Margaret Cameron of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, is offered in the Books, Maps, Manuscripts & Photography auction on September 15 at Lawrences of Crewkerne.

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.