A Cache of Photographs by Roger Fenton?
Daniel Goddard presents the case that a number of photographs found in an album
belonging to Col Edmund Gilling Hallewell are actually taken by the founder of the
Photographic Society, Roger Fenton, in 1854.
A photograph of Bolton Abbey found in Hallewell's album, which is very likely to
have been taken by Roger Fenton.
The first
Fine Art Sale
of 2013, spreading over three days on 29th, 30th and 31st January 2013, features
a group of important artefacts from Col Edmund Gilling Hallewell (1822-1869), a&nsbp;professional
army officer and noted amateur artist. The artefacts comprise watercolours
of Niagara Falls and Gibraltar, nine of Hallewell's diaries, 1857-1865, and a large
album of photographs that he compiled within the period covered by the diaries.
Another photograph of Bolton Abbey, probably taken by Roger Fenton in 1854, which
is being offered in our January 2013 Fine Sale.
For the most part the album is of a conventional collection of mainly topographical
photographs, in particular of Malta, Corfu and Gibraltar – Hallewell served as Deputy
Quartermaster General of the Malta Garrison from after the Crimean War until 1863,
when he returned to England to become commandant of the Royal Military College at
Sandhurst.
One of the antique photographs found in Col Edmund Hallewell's album, which is being
offered for auction.
After the fashion of the day, the album also contains a large number of carte-de-visite
photographs of notable figures and personal acquaintances. From a photo-historical
viewpoint, one of them stands out above the others: it is a portrait of the pre-eminent
photographer of the 1850s, and founder of the Photographic Society, Roger Fenton.
The album also contains a half dozen highly accomplished, unsigned, large-format
photographs of Bolton Abbey (in Yorkshire), which Fenton photographed in 1854.
A photograph from Col Edmund Hallewell's album, which is being offered for auction
in January 2013.
Hallewell joined the army as an ensign in 1839 and by the onset of the Crimean campaign
he had made lieutenant-colonel. In the Crimea, he encountered Fenton, whose images
of the war were to become famous; and, in fact, Hallewell is portrayed in four of
Fenton's tableaux of camp life. It may be imagined that the two had much in common
– Fenton had trained as an artist before taking up photography – and they kept in
contact thereafter.
A topographical photograph contained in Hallewell's album, which has been consigned
to the Picture section of our next Fine Art Sale.
That the images of Bolton Abbey in Hallewell's album are persuasively by Fenton
lies not only in their outstanding pictorial qualities. In 1860, while on home leave,
Hallewell called on Fenton, as he records in his diary entry for 31st October 1860:
"I went to see the Fentons, he gave me some Photographs. He is also going to
do the Photo from my mother's portrait, which I left with him." Hallewell was duly
grateful for the copy of the portrait of his departed parent, which soon arrived,
and on his return to Malta he sent Fenton a case of oranges. In listing his correspondence
sent and received at the end of his following year's diary, we find an entry for
a letter received from Fenton's wife, Grace. Small doubt that she was acknowledging
receipt of the oranges, while Fenton's photographs were inserted into Hallewell's
album.
A portrait photograph from the Hallewell album in which photographs possibly by
Roger Fenton were found.
- Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood
- Fine Art Auctions
- Col Edmund Gilling Hallewell
- Roger Fenton
- Photography
- Photographic Society
- Bolton Abbey
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