Anna Atkins 1799-1871

Sotheby's Belgravia, 28 October 1981, Lot 220

Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

Acquired by the present owner from the above, 1986

This cyanotype photogram and those in the following three lots are from an album of Atkins's cyanotypes entitled Cyanotypes of British and Foreign Flowering Plants and Ferns, originally sold at Sotheby's Belgravia in 1981.  The album, which contained 160 plates, was given by Atkins to her childhood friend Anne Dixon.  After the 1981 sale, the plates from the album were dispersed, some going to private dealers and collectors, and other portions going to the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum.  According to Atkins scholar Larry Schaaf, this important album contained the 'only known deviations from Atkins's basic print size of 25 x 19.5 cm.' (Sun Gardens: Victorian Photograms by Anna Atkins, p. 44). The prints offered from the collection of Gordon L. Bennett, each measuring approximately 35 by 25 cm., are among these large prints.  Schaaf writes that these images 'exhibit a sense of visual freedom enjoyed by Atkins once she was released from the restrictive format of British Algae' (ibid.), done in the 1840s.