Liberty’s Torch in Madison Square Park. no publisher, negative ca. 1876, made from a print, late 19th century.

The torch of the Statue of Liberty was exhibited in Madison Square Park, New York to raise funds for the statue’s completion.  The torch remained in the park from 1876 through 1882.

$1,800

Collection of 23 Great Baltimore Fire photographs. Baltimore, 1904

The Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 destroyed 1500 buildings and damaged another 1000, bringing property loss from the disaster to an estimated $100 million. It remains the third most devastating fire in the United States history, surprised only by Chicago (1871) and San Francisco (1906). This remarkable series of photographs documents the destruction. In many photographs people stand on the street surveying the destruction, sometimes with water still trained on the smoldering ruins.

$1,800

Portrait of Frida Kahlo. Sternberger, Mexico City, 1952, printed 2017

Kahlo and her husband Diego Rivera had become intimate friends of photographer Marcel Sternberger and his wife Ilse by that time. The couple held Sternberger’s work in such high regard that Rivera said it was the first time [I’ve] seen the real me and above his bed in Kahlo’s lifelong house La Caza Azul hangs a portrait of Frida by Sternberger.

$1,525

Collection of three portraits of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Various photographers, 1860s-1880s

Three portraits of Emerson

$1,500

Vietnamese Musicians. Saigon, c. late 1860s

The French photographer Émile Gsell became the first commercial photographer based in Saigon following his first expedition to photograph Angkor in 1866.

$1,500

Portrait of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Basis for the U.S. Dime. Washington, 1939, printed 2017

This photograph was the basis for FDR’s bust on the face of the American dime, first minted in 1946.

$900 unframed; framed: $1,300

Portrait of George Bernard Shaw. London, 1938, printed 2017

Shaw is pictured in three-quarter view with artful shadow play down the right side of his face. Sternberger was a ‘master of light and shadow’ according to contemporary museum directors.

$900 unframed; framed: $1,300

Portrait of Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru. New York, 1949, printed 2017

Sternberger presents a careful composition in this portrait of Jawaharlal Nehru. The crisp white Khaddar cap and dark shadows offset each other. This photograph was used as Nehru’s official government portrait in India and could be found in every school, government office, and embassy worldwide. It continues to provide the cover for Nehru’s seminal Glimpses of World History, a collection of letters about the history of humankind written from prison.

$900 unframed; framed: $1,300

Portrait of Sigmund Freud. London, 1938, printed 2017

Sternberger and Freud had known each other for years before they fled Europe with the rise of Nazism. Though Freud was terminally ill and at first hesitant about receiving visitors in 1938, the neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis said it “makes me feel good to see old-familiar faces again” when Sternberger arrived. This is said to have been Freud’s last portrait session before his death in 1939.

$900 unframed; framed: $1,300

Portrait of George Bernard Shaw examining stamps. London, 1938, printed 2017

In this portrait Shaw examines the stamps which Sternberger had designed for the Belgian Royal Family, featuring the Royal children. Shaw was a philatelist, and the offer of the stamps was part of Sternberger’s method to gain access to Shaw.

$900 unframed; framed: $1,300