Photographs of California scenes: a mammoth plate miscellany, [between 1861 and 1885?]

Summary

Abstract:

A miscellany of mammoth plate landscape photographs assembled by The Bancroft Library from various sources. The great majority of images are by Carleton E. Watkins.

Extent:

98 photographic prints : albumen ; various sizes. 59 digital objects

Language:

Collection materials are in English

Background

Scope and content:

A miscellany of mammoth plate landscape photographs assembled by The Bancroft Library from various sources. The great majority of images are by Carleton E. Watkins. A few formerly attributed to Watkins are known to be by C.L. Weed. Most images are of Yosemite, but views of San Francisco, Mount Shasta, Sonoma County, California Missions, and other California locales are also present. One Arizona view and several of Nevada's Comstock region are also included. Image dates range from 1861 into the 1880s.

Physical location:

Many of the Bancroft Library collections are stored offsite and advance notice may be required for use. For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the library's online catalog.

Rules or conventions:

Finding Aid prepared using Describing Archives: a Content Standard

Note:

"Volume" designations within item call numbers actually refer to large boxes. It is not clear that any of these were ever bound as mammoth albums. Contents of some of the boxes ("volumes") of this miscellany are clearly related by provenance, while others appear to be assmbled from various unknown sources. Volume 1, for example, is in uniformly poor, remounted condition, but there is evidence of an earlier uniform style of captioned window mat on each. Volumes 2-3 appear to be miscellaneous assemblages. Contents of Volume 4, on the other hand, are on uniform original mounts and annotated in the same early hand, indicating a shared provenance, while Volume 5 contains items bearing Polhemus library bookplates on verso, and Volume 6 contains images once owned by J.J. O'Doran of New York. For more details regarding characteristics of each box, see The Bancroft Library's online catalog.

Item titles are supplied and may or may not correspond to captions or annotation found on Bancroft Library's copy. Many are supplied from copies found at other institutions, as recorded by a Getty Museum catalogue raisonné project.

Location of this collection:

UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library

University of California, Berkeley, The Bancroft Library

Berkeley, CA 94720-6000, US

Contact:

510-642-6481

bancref-library@berkeley.edu

Website