Sold for €6,000
Estimate: € 10.000–12.000
Salt paper print from wet collodion negative, mounted on original paper page
20,7 x 16,3 cm
original page with captions from portfolio, publisher Thomas Agnew & Sons, Manchester 1856
LITERATURE Gordon Baldwin (ed.), Roger Fenton: Pasha and Bayadere (The J. Paul Getty Museum, 1996), p. 55.
The portrait shows Roger Fenton dressed in a traditional Zouave costume, holding a rifle with both hands and with a cigar in his mouth. There is a bottle and a tankard on the table beside him to the left and a plain cloth backdrop draped behind. It was arranged by Fenton himself but photographed by his assistant Marcus Sparling. Zouave regiments from Algeria served with the French army during the Crimean War, and had a distinctive North African uniform. Fenton photographed Zouaves on several occasions during his time in the Crimea, as well as posing for this series of self-portraits. Using glass plate negatives and the wet collodion process, he captured striking images during the war, mainly in springtime when the light was strong. The lack of blurring in most of his images, even though exposure times were between three and twenty seconds, shows his technical mastery. His photographs were published by Agnew & Sons and sold by subscription in several portfolios between 1855 and 1856. The present print is is in very good condition and shows a high degree of contrast.
Start price: €6.000