The
Feigenbaum Collection of Southworth &
Hawes
An
Auction Report
Photographs
by Nicholas M. Graver
Not
since the landmark
sale
of
the Sidney Strober collection in 1970 has an
auction galvanized the photographic community like
the one Sotheby’s held in New York April
27.
The
Strober sale (which I attended while still in my
teens) coalesced a small number of collectors from
around the country into something of a community.
The wealth of material on the block attracted
old-school collectors who’d been buying since
the Great Depression and neophytes who’d never
purchased anything at auction. Suddenly, we found
we weren’t alone in our appreciation for
daguerreotypes or salt prints or Civil War
photography--we had soul-mates. Yes--and
competitors.
The
Sotheby’s sale--just shy of 30 years
later--was marked by a buzz of excitement and a
gathering of collectors and dealers both well-known
and reclusive. All of us were drawn by the magnetic
power of Southworth & Hawes-- a partnership of
Bostonians that produced many of the most memorable
images from the first years of photography.
Southworth & Hawes worked exclusively in the
daguerreotype process during the 1840s and 1850s.
Their groundbreaking images elevated photographic
portraiture to the level of fine art and figure
prominently in every important book and collection
devoted to early photography in America.
In
a field where collectors easily become jaded, the
240 Southworth & Hawes daguerreotypes in the
auction created a sensation on a number of counts.
First, they were unknown pieces fresh to the
market. The entire collection was recently
discovered in Marblehead, Massachusetts in the
basement of the late David Feigenbaum, who
purchased them in the 1930s and apparently showed
them to nobody for nearly 70 years.
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Collector
and historian Marilyn Graver
examines a whole-plate of the
19th Century social reformer
Dorothea Dix at the auction
preview. She was the highest
bidder for this rare celebrity
portrait.
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Secondly,
the daguerreotypes apparently came directly from
the studio archives preserved by Josiah Johnson
Hawes until his death in 1901. That’s the same
source as the Southworth & Hawes daguerreotypes
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in the
collection of George Eastman House, and at
Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.
A
third factor contributing to the excitement was
that a number of the offerings were close variants
of famous Southworth & Hawes images in museum
collections. A few, like an evocative interior of a
Boston schoolhouse bathed in natural light, were
separated from mates in those institutional
collections. If the two images of such a pair were
to be combined, they could be viewed in
breathtaking 3-D...an experience as close as we can
get to actually traveling back in time to the
1850s.
Finally,
no major group of Southworth & Hawes images has
ever been offered at public auction. Until now most
of these rarities changed hands privately, one at a
time.
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Sotheby's
Photography Specialist Denise
Bethel, all smiles beside a case
displaying whole-plate
daguerreotype scenes by
Southworth
& Hawes.
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After
several weeks of intense rumors, the sale was
announced in February with catalogues going out
about three weeks in advance of the auction. There
were major articles about the collection in the
New York Times and the Wall Street
Journal. By the time the preview showing
opened, the weekend before the auction, the
“buzz” was so intense that it felt like a
reprise of the Jackie O sale.
When
the gavel began to fall, it became instantly clear
that this was not mere hype. Only one lot in the
sale failed to sell--but that lot did not contain
daguerreotypes. Every single one of the 240
Southworth & Hawes daguerreotypes found a new
home--often after soaring in price far above the
initial estimated range.
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Heads
turn in the packed Sotheby's
salesroom as bidding for a
daguerreotype of a sleeping
infant Edward Hawes escalates
past $200,000
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A
few highlights:
A
superb and perhaps unique whole-plate (6.5 x 8.5
inches) view of clouds in the sky over a Boston
rooftop. Estimated at $100,000-150,000, it sold
for $354,500 with buyer’s premium, smashing
the old record for a daguerreotype at auction.
Reports indicate it was purchased by a collector
who has previously concentrated on important
modernist images.
Two
very personal images of Josiah Hawes’ son
Edward as a baby, asleep. Also in the prized
whole-plate size, the first version brought
$68,500, the second $217,000 (compared to a
pre-sale estimate of $50-70,000
each)
The
cover lot, a striking whole plate view of two
women. Estimated at $50,000 to $70,000, this
image eclipsed the price record established just
a few minutes before by the cloud study,
bringing $387,500. Rumors circulated about the
identity of the purchaser, but in August of 2001
The Amon Carter Museum of Ft. Worth, Texas
revealed that it had acquired this image -- as
well as one of the portraits of the sleeping
Edward Hawes.
The
cover lot did more than establish a price record:
it showed that the very highest price in a major
daguerreotype sale could go not to a gold-mining
scene or rare subject like a native American, but
to a simple and exquisite portrait. Asked about
this, Sotheby’s photography expert Denise
Bethel noted, “It was a record... for
aesthetics.”
Within
minutes of the sale’s end, and for weeks
after, a whole range of secondary transactions
began taking shape. Many of these involved the
group lots, dealer-friendly assortments containing
up to 40 Southworth & Hawes daguerreotypes
each. The group lots included whole plates or other
significant pieces, such as stereo-daguerreotype
portraits (there were nine in this sale; until now,
only one Southworth & Hawes stereo
daguerreotype was known to be in private hands).
But only one piece from each group was shown in the
catalogue.
The
treasures in these lots did not escape notice. A
grouping of seven post-mortem and death-related
images tripled the high estimate of $5000 (selling
to dealer Michael Lehr for $17,250 with premium).
Gallery owner Janos Novomeszky took home the
much-discussed lot 12, containing portraits of
people with plants and an astonishing study of a
frost pattern on a window. The hammer price:
$27,000, against a top estimate of
$6000.
With
the group lots pushing into the price range of
luxury cars, many collectors of modest means found
themselves leaving the sale empty-handed, and
scrambling to purchase an example or two on the
secondary market. Some got their chance on the
internet: a few pieces have turned up at an online
auction, as have a number of daguerreotypes from
the Feigenbaum Collection that were NOT taken by
Southworth & Hawes. Most of the
significant secondary sales have been private,
however, with one dealer reporting he paid "nearly
six figures" for a whole plate that fetched around
$50,000 at the auction.
When
the figures were added up, the total paid to
Sotheby’s for these basement treasures was
$3.3 million dollars--about double the midpoint of
the pre-sale estimates.
How
did it happen? Sotheby’s photography expert
Denise Bethel, assisted by Chris Mahoney,
recognized this as a very rare opportunity and made
the most of it. They produced a well-researched
catalogue and staged a symposium 24 hours prior to
the auction. A crowd estimated at 200 packed the
salesroom to hear daguerreotype experts Grant
Romer, Sally Pierce, and John Wood discuss the
collection and Southworth & Hawes. The preview
offered ample opportunities to see and handle a
wide range of material by this famous studio--a
rare experience in itself.
For
those privileged to attend--and especially those
fortunate enough to acquire an image or two--there
was a feeling of history being made, as well as
history being purchased.
Just
as there was at the Strober sale... way back in
1970.
--Wm.
B. Becker
This
article first appeared in The Photograph
Collector
and
was reprinted in The Daguerreian Society
Newsletter,
Vol.
11 No. 3 (May/June 1999)
updated:
October 2001
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