1863 Gems from Dusseldorf Gallery A.A. Turner Early Photograph Leather XL Folio For Sale

Edition DetailsTitle: Gems from the “Düsseldorf Gallery”
Photographer: Austin Augustus Turner
Reproduction supervised by: B. Frodsham
Publisher: D. Appleton & Co., New York
Publication Date: 1863
Edition: First edition
Format: Large folio
Binding: Original publisher’s full brown morocco, elaborately blind-tooled and lettered in gilt, with five raised spine bands, all edges gilt, marbled endpapers, and broad gilt inner dentelles
Illustrations: Mounted photographic reproductions after paintings formerly exhibited in the Düsseldorf Gallery, each accompanied by descriptive letterpress. The edition was issued with 52 mounted photographs.
Dimensions: Approximately 17 × 13 × 3 inches
Weight: Approximately 14 pounds unpackedOverviewPublished in 1863, Gems from the “Düsseldorf Gallery” is an important early American photographically illustrated art book, issued with mounted photographic prints made by Austin Augustus Turner from the original paintings.Turner was an American photographer and photolithographer who worked at Mathew Brady’s New York gallery and later produced photographic work for D. Appleton & Co. His photographs and photographically illustrated publications are represented in major institutional collections.The Düsseldorf Gallery opened in New York in 1849 to exhibit a collection assembled by German-American merchant Johann Gottfried Böker. Its historical, religious, landscape, and narrative paintings introduced American audiences to the Düsseldorf school and influenced nineteenth-century American artistic taste. The collection was dispersed shortly before this volume appeared, giving Turner’s photographs added significance as a visual record of paintings once exhibited together.
Artists represented include Emanuel Leutze, Carl Friedrich Lessing, Andreas Achenbach, Adolph Tidemand, Johann Peter Hasenclever, Julius Schrader, Friedrich Boser, and others.This copy carries an unusually detailed multigenerational female provenance on a preliminary blank. The inscription records Julia Stuart Badeau receiving the volume from her mother, Almerah Rhinelander Mitchell Herne, in 1881. It then traces the book through F. Edith Badeau Macrery of Brooklyn; Julia Edith Macrery in 1920 at Edgewood Farm, Amityville, New York; Louise Macrery Grant; and Mary Louise Grant Fratalone.The Rhinelanders were a longstanding and notable New York family, although the precise genealogical branch represented here has not been conclusively established. The distinctive ownership name F. Edith Badeau Macrery is also documented in another nineteenth-century Appleton volume.The original binding is a major feature of the book: deeply blind-tooled covers titled in gilt, five raised spine bands, all edges gilt, richly colored marbled endpapers, and broad gilt inner dentelles. In a morocco binding of this period, the gilding would ordinarily have been applied with gold leaf; because it has not been scientifically tested, it is described simply as gilt.ConditionOriginal publisher’s full brown morocco binding remains structurally sound, with both boards firmly attached. There is a short split to the paper at the upper front inner hinge; the underlying hinge remains intact.
The leather shows rubbing, scuffing, scratches, abrasions, bumped corners, and areas of surface loss, chiefly along the board edges, corners, joints, and raised spine bands. The elaborate blind tooling remains strong and clearly defined, and the gilt titles remain legible.The marbled endpapers retain strong color. The broad gilt inner dentelles are substantially preserved, with localized rubbing and wear near the edges and corners.Pages show general toning and scattered light-to-moderate foxing, most noticeable on blank leaves, descriptive text leaves, plate mounts, and margins. The mounted photographs retain good sepia tonal detail overall, with occasional foxing, marks, and other age-related surface imperfections.The handwritten family provenance remains legible.Photographs form an integral part of the description and show the covers, spine, leather wear, corners, gilt page edges, marbled endpapers, gilt dentelles, inner hinge, provenance, title page, text, and representative mounted photographs.Each mounted photograph will be protected with archival interleaving tissue. The volume will be wrapped in acid-free archival tissue and accompanied by an archival storage box. Because the book weighs approximately 14 pounds before packing, it will be securely supported, insured, and shipped with tracking and signature required.All serious offers will be considered.