[Photography]
The Meserve Collection of Photography
An extraordinary and important collection of approximately 800 period albumen portrait photographs, composed of the bulk of Volumes 1-3 of the Frederick H. Meserve photography collection and including portraits of artists, writers, scientists, educators, musicians and others, among which are included rare photographs of Brahms, Dickens, Dumas, Darwin, Barton, Nightingale, Whitman, Poe, Sand, Hugo, Daguerre, Tchaikovsky and many, many more. A complete listing of included figures, organized by profession, is included below.Born in 1865, Frederick H. Meserve was the son of William Neal Meserve, a Civil War veteran, and began collecting Civil War era photographs in the 1890s to illustrate his father's war diary. He became a prominent collector and historian of photographs from the era, especially photographs of Abraham Lincoln, and he later worked alongside historian Carl Sandburg to publish "The Photographs of Abraham Lincoln" in 1944. But he was a collector not just of Civil War photographs and indeed bought entire contents of photography studios including those of Matthew Brady, Sarony, Nadar, etc.. In 1913 he made four sets of his photographs (at a cost of $413 - equivalent to approx. $9500 in today's dollars), mostly printed from the original negatives, including one each for The Morgan Library, The New York Historical Society and eventually, for Harvard. Various smaller groups of images were issued over time, but there are only these four large sets of his photographs in existence, all of which are mounted and described in Meserve's hand on folio pages, as here. While the Meserve Lincoln set of 120 images was issued in 102 sets and does surface from time to time in the trade and at auction (most recently fetching $21,600), the present much larger set is much rarer and indeed, according to our research, is by far the largest group of Meserve photographs to appear on the market in at least 30 years.
A complete listing of included figures, organized by profession, is included below.
Abolitionists, Suffragettes, and Other Activists:
Jane Addams, Susan B. Anthony, Henry Bergh, Annie Besant, Celia Burleigh, Tennessee Claflin, Anna Dickinson (2), William Garrison (2), John P. Gough (2), Helen Hunt Jackson, Mary A. Livermore, Lucretia Mott, Wendell Phillips (2), Anna H. Shaw, Eliza Snow, Elizabeth Cody Stanton (2), Lucy Stone, Dr. Mary E. Walker (4), Frances E. Williard
Academics, Educators, and Professors:
Felix Adler, M.B. Anderson, E. Benjamin Andrews, Charles Anthon, Franz Boaz, Francis Bowen, Willima H. Brewer, Paul Chadbourne, Edmund Chadwick, Francis W. Child, Josiah Parsons Cooke, James D. Dana, Charles W. Eliot, Edward Everett [President, Harvard] (2), W.H.P. Faunce [President, Brown], C.C. Felton [President, Harvard] (2), Isaac Ferris [Chancellor, NYU], John H. Finley, John Fiske, William W. Goodwin, Dr. William H. Green, Ephraim W. Gurney, Arthur J. Hadley [President, Yale], William R. Harper [President, U. of Chicago], Thomas Hill [President, Harvard], Caspar W. Hodge, Charles Hodge, Charles J. Hughes [President, Barnes Medical College], Edmund J. James [President, U. of Illinois], William James, Hames Jennison, George W. Lane, Joseph Lovering, Richard C. MacLarin [President, MIT], William H. Maxwell [Superintendent, NYC Schools], John McCosh [President, Princeton] (2), Alexander J. McGill, John McVickar [Professor, Columbia], James C. Moffett, Hugo Munsterberg, Charles Eliot Norton, Eliphat Nott [President, Union College], Arthur Amos Noyes [President, MIT], John Jason Owen, A.P. Peabody, Benjamin Pierce, Thomas R. Pyncheon [President, Trinity College], Josiah Quincey [President, Harvard], John D. Runker [President, MIT], J.G. Schumann [President, Cornell], Julius H. Seelye [President, Amherst], John L. Sibley, Evangelinos A. Sophocles [President, Harvard], Jared Sparks [President, Harvard] (2), Henry Tarrey, James Monroe Taylor [President, Vassar], George Ticknor, Eben Tourjee, James Walker [Presiden, Harvard] (2), Barrett Wendell, Benjamin Ide Wheeler [President, U. of California], George W. Williard [President, Heidelberg College], Andrew Dickson White
Actors, Playwrights, Directors, etc.:
George Ade, Victorien Sardou [Dramatist], Augustus Thomas, Marshall P. Wilder
Artists:
G.E. Aiken, John W. Alexander, George A. Baker, Frederick Bartholdi, Truman H. Bartlett, Jules Bastenne-Lepage, Rosa Bonheur (2), James R. Brevoort, J.G. Brown, J.W. Cassilear, Frederick E. Church, Thomas Cole, Timothy Cole, Christopher Cranch, Jasper Cropsy, F.O.C. Darley, Gustave Dore, Benjamin Eggleston, Charles L. Elliott (2), James Montgomery Flagg, Henry Peters Gray, James M. Hart, William Hart, Oliver Herford, Edward L. Henry, William M. Hunt, Daniel Huntington (3), Charles Ingham, Henry Inman, George Inness, Eastman Johnson, J.F. Kensett, George W. King, Sir Edwin Landseer, Sir Frederick Leighton, Sir James D. Linton, Gerald Massey, John Massey, J.L.E. Meissonier, John E. Millais, Thomas Moran, S.A. Mount (2), John Narsh, Thomas Nash (4), Peter Newell, Robert O'Brian, William Page (2), Palmer [First name unconfirmed, identified as "Artist"], Albert Rosenthal, John Sartain, A.D. Shattuck, Thomas Sully (2), A.F. Tait, Edmund C. Tarbell, Eliza Thompson, Jerome Thompson, Launt Thompson, George Quincy Thorndyke, Elihu Vedder, Horace Vernet, John Quincy Adams Ward, Edwin White (2), Henry Wolf
Authors and Writers:
Bronson Alcott, Gabriele D. Annunzio, T.S. Arthur, Philip James Bailey, Rex. E Beach, Adolphe Belst, William Black, Fredrika Bremer, Dr. John Brown, Charles F. Browne ["Artemus Ward"] (2), Francis Hodgkins Burnett, Hall Caine, Thomas Carlyle (4), Winston Churchill, Samuel Clemens ["Mark Twain"] (2), A Coles, Wilkie Collins, James Fenimore Cooper, F. Marion Crawford, George W. Curtis (3), Alphonse Daudet, Holman F. Day, Guy de Manpassant, John W. DeForest, Charles Dickens (10), A. Gustave Droz, Alexandre Dumas, père (2), Alexandre Dumas, fils (2), Alice Durand, Winnifred Eaton, Maurice J. Egan, Edward Eggleston, George Eliot, Ralph Waldo Emerson (2), Theodore S. Fay, Fanny Fern, Octave Feuillet (2), James J. Fields, Alice French ["Octave Thanet"], Hamlin Garland, Elinor Glyn, Samuel G. Goodrich, Sarah Grand, Grace Greenwood (2), Edward Everett Hale, Henry Harland, Bret F. Harte (2), Nathaniel Hawthorne (6), William C. Hazlett, Lafcadio Hearn, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, J.G. Holland, William Dean Howells, Mary Botham Howitt, Elbert Hubbard (2), Thomas Hughes (2), Victor Hugo, Robert Ingersoll, George Payne Rainsford James, John Keble, J.P. Kennedy, Charles Kingsley (2), Paul de Koch, Alphonse Lamartine (2), M.D. Landon ["Eli Perkins"], CJ Leland, George Henry Lewes, Joseph C. Lincoln, Eliza Lynn Linton, Olive Logan (2), Jack London, Henry W. Longfellow (11), Edna Lyall, Bulwer Lytton (2), George MacDonald (2), James Martineau, Stephen Massett, Miriam Michelson, Donald G. Mitchell ["Ik Marvel"], George P. Morris (2), John Mosley, John Lothrop Motley (8), Edgar W. Nye ["Bill Nye"], Georges Ohnet, Sir Gilbert Parker, James Payne (2), Ernst Renan, Alice Hegan Rice, Edward Payson Roe, John Ruskin (3), Henry Wheeler Shaw ["Josh Billings"] (2), WGT Shead, W. Gilmore Sims, Mary Craig Sinclair, Henry Prescott Spofford, Ann S. Stephens, Sergius Stepniak, Robert Louis Stevenson, Richard Henry Stoddard, Harriet Beecher Stowe (3), Ida M. Tarbell, Alfred Tennyson (6), William Thackeray (4), Grant Thorburn, John Todd, Leo Tolstoy, Arthur C. Train, Anthony Trollope (2), J.T. Trowbridge, N. Beverly Tucker, Jules Verne, Mary Augusta Ward ["Mrs. Humphry Ward"], Booker T. Washington (2), HG Wells, Prosper M. Wetmore, Edwin Percy Whipple, John Greenleaf Whittier (2), Kate Douglas Wiggin, Mary E. Wilkins, N.P. Willis (6), Owen Wilson, William Winter, Theodore Winthrop, Charlotte M. Yonge (2), Emile Zola
Businessmen:
Andrew Carnegie, Ezra Cornell, Cyrus W. Field (2), William Randolph Hearst
Composers, Conductors, and Musicians:
Johannes Brahms [Composer], Ole Bull [Violinist], Hans Guido Bulow [Composer], Fanny Crosby [Composer], Frank Damrosch [Conductor], Leopold Damrosch [Conductor], Walter Damrosch [Conductor], Wilhelm Gericke [Conductor], Edouard Grieg [Composer], Otto Hegner [Violinist], Josef Hofman [Composer] (2), Joseph Joachim [Composer], Franz Liszt [Composer], Jacob Meyerbeer [Composer], Moritz Moskovski [Composer], Vladimir Pachman [Pianist], Ignacy Paderewski [Composer] (2), Gioachino Rossini [Composer], Anton Rubinstein [Composer], Pablo Sarasate [Composer] (2), Theodore Thomas [Violinist, Conductor] (2), Pyotr Tschaikowsky [Composer], Richard Wagner [Composer], August Wilhemj [Composer, Violinist]
Critics:
Richard Henry Stoddard, Henry T. Tuckerman, Henry C. Watson, Richard Grant White
Detectives:
William J. Brown, Allen Pinkerton
Doctors, Nurses, and Medical Figures:
Clara Barton, Dr. John W. Francis, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (6), Clemence S. Lozier, Silas Weir Mitchell (3), Florence Nightingale (5), Williard Parker, D.K. Pearsons
Economists and Financiers:
John B. Clark, Richard Cobden (2), Henry George (2), Thomas W. Lawson, John Stuart Mill
Editors and Publishers:
Lyman Abbott, Henry M. Alden, Daniel Appleton, Alfred S. Barnes, James G. Bennett, Frank C. Bernard, Beverly R. Betts, Dr. James M. Buckley (2), John P. Durbin, Edward Zane Carroll Judson Sr. ["Ned Buntline"], Hamilton W. Mabie, William MacKay Laffan, Edward P. Mitchell, Henry J. Raymond, Whitelaw Reid, Benjamin Penhall Shillaber, Teodore Tilton, Thurlow Weed, William Allen White, George C. Wilkes
Explorers:
Isaac J. Hayes, Elisha Kent Kane, S.A. King, David Livingstone (2), Robert E. Peary (2), Henry M. Stanley (4), George Francis Train
Historians:
John S.C. Abbott, Louis Blanc, John Romeyn Brodhead, James Anthony Froude (2), Jules Michelet, Jesse T Pack, Francis Parkman (2), James Parton, Wiliam H. Prescott, Goodwin Smith, Abel Stevens
Inventors and Engineers:
James B. Eads, Thomas Edison, Erickson [First name unconfirmed, identified as "Inventor", possibly John Ericsson], Guglielmo Marconi, Sir Hiram S. Mixim, Samuel F.B. Morse (4), George M. Pullman (2), De Volsen Wood (2), Orville Wright, Wilbur Wright, Ferdinand Zeppelin
Journalists:
Arthur Brisbane, James Brooks, Charles A. Dana (2), Gerard Hallock, Charles G. Haldeman, Murat Halsted, Hugh Hastings (2), Amos Kendall, David Ross Locke ["Petroleum V. Nasby"] (2), Frank A. Munsey, Thomas O'Conor, Marcus Pomeroy, Benjamin Perley Poore (2), George D. Prentice (2), S.T. Prime, Julian Ralph, Henri Rochefort (2), William Howard Russell, George Schneider, Owen Seaman, William W. Seaton, Elliott Shepard, William T. Stead, William Swinton, H.E. Taylor, Henry Watterson, Horace White
Lawyers and Judges:
Austin Abbott, John Bigelow, Horace Greeley (5), E.C. Larned, Frank Lockwood (2), William B. Reed, Albion Tourjee, Gulian Verplanck, Lew Wallace
Philosophers and Political Theorists:
Francis Lieber, Karl Marx, Noah Porter, Herbert Spencer (3)
Photographers:
M.B. Brady (2), Edward S. Curtis, Napoleon Sarony, Louie Sarony, Napoleon Sarony
Poets:
Park Benjamin, George H. Boker, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning (4), William Cullen Bryant (4), Alice Cary, Phoebe Cary, Will Carleton, Arthur Hugh Clough, François Coppée, Ralph Waldo Emerson (3), Eugene Field, Richard Watson Gilder (2), Anna Katharine Green, Benjamin Hathaway, Helen Hay, J.G. Holland, Fitz-Greene Halleck (2), Sydney Lanier, James Russell Lowell (5), Maurice Maeterlinck, Edwin Markham (2), Joaquin Miller (3), Lewis Morris, Robert Treat Paine, Albert Pike (2), Edgar Allen Poe, Virginia Poe, Jean Richepin, Christina Rosetti, Margaret E. Sangster, John G. Saxe, Edmund Clarence Stedman, W.C. Sturoc, John B. Tabb, Bayard Taylor, William Watson, Walt Whitman (6), John Greenleaf Whittier
Politicians, Royalty, and Nobility:
Newton Baker [US Sec. of War], George Bancroft [US Sec. of Navy] (4), Charles P. Daly, Thomas Dixon Jr, John Hay, John V.L. Pruyn, William B. Reed, William Thompson [1st Baron Kelvin], Thomas E. Watson
Religious figures:
Ezra Abbott, Maud Bollington Booth, Tucker Booth, Francis L. Hawks, Joel Parker [President, Union Theological Seminary] (2), Joseph T. Smith [President, Mormon Church], Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Henry Van Dyke (2)
Scientists:
Sir Frederick Abel [Chemist], Alexander Agassiz [Naturalist], Louis Agassiz [Biologist, Geologist] (4), Grant Allen [Naturalist], Alexander D. Bache [Surveyor], John Burrough [Naturalist], Lewis Daguerre [Physicist] (2), Charles Darwin [Biologist] (2), G.A. Daubree [Geologist], Sir Michael Faraday [Physicist], R. Ogden Doremus [Chemist] (2), Henry Draper [Astronomer], T. Wilson Flagg [Naturalist], Asa Gray [Botanist], Joseph Henry (2), Eben Norton Horsford [Chemist], John James Huxley (3), Sir Charles Lyell [Geologist], Maria Mitchell [Astronomer], Edward S. Morse [Naturalist], Louis Pasteur [Chemist], Samuel S. Purple [Geneologist], Benjamin J. Silliman [Chemist] (3), John Tyndall [Physicist] (3), F.H.A. von Humboldt [Naturalist] (5684)
Unsigned Photo Art & Design