UNITED KINGDOM: Sotheby's prepares to auction early examples of newspaper photographs

Record ID: 336485

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM: Sotheby's prepares to auction early examples of newspaper photographs
  • Date: 3rd May 2002
  • Summary: CLOSE UP OF PHOTOGRAPH OF CAMERA AND TILT UP TO MARILYN MONROE TAKING PHOTO CLOSE UP PHOTOGRAPH OF MARILYN MONROE LYING DRAPED WITH BEADS CLOSE OF PHOTOGRAPH OF MARILYN MONROE TOPLESS MARKED WITH CROSS AND ZOOM OUT TO CONTACT SHEET VARIOUS OF PHOTOS VARIOUS, OF PEOPLE LOOKING ROUND GALLERY (2 SHOTS)
  • Embargoed: 18th May 2002 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: Business,History
  • Reuters ID: LVA65THAI4I4ELHFFN4YIXUKL4N3
  • Story Text: The first ever example of newspaper photojournalism is to be auctioned at Sotheby's in London.
    The historic photographs of the Paris riots in 1848, which became the first photographic news story to appear in the press, are to be sold at auction on Thursday (May 9).
    They show people on the barricades in the riots and appeared in the French weekly "L'Illustration".
    The images, expected to fetch up to £200,000 (US$300, 000) were taken by a pioneer French photographer known only as Monsieur Thibault. He climbed to a rooftop in Paris on successive days in June 1848 to record the scenes on the barricaded street below.
    A week later they were used in the weekly newspaper L'Illustration, Journal Universal with a report of the insurrection and a city under siege.
    The images - being sold by a Belgian nobleman, Comte Geoffroy de Beauffort, to benefit the World Animal Handicap Foundation - are being offered with a copy of the newspaper they appeared in and wood block engravings from the pictures.
    The pictures as they appear in the newspaper bear little resemblance to the photographs we know in the newspapers of today, as such photos emerged only between the First and Second World Wars.
    "They really do represent the very first known example of photojournalism, war and conflict illustrated, recorded first on the metal plates and those metal plates translate into wood engravings that made it into the press just a few days later,"
    said Phillipe Garner, specialist in photographs at the Sotheby's auction house of the sale.
    The photos were taken over two days; June 25 and 26, 1848, over that period and the days before and after some 3,000 insurgents were killed on the streets of the city.
    "What we have here is effectively a story being told. Two stages, crucial stages of a major event in French life, the revolution of 1848. We see barricades being prepared; the tension, the eerie tension of those streets before the attack by the troops, that is the subject of the first of the plates.
    The second shows the same scene after the attack, the crowds milling around, the troops there, on these plates, which make them extraordinary documents," said Phillipe Garner, highlighting their importance.
    The auction of photographs is a yearly event and other works for the taking include stills of Marilyn Monroe by Bert Stern which will no doubt prove popular.
    kt/
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