Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book
Cowan's Auctions (cowansauctions.com)
A Photographic Masterpiece Finally Pays Off
The Artifact
An original copy of Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the War
Condition
Both volumes have scuffing to the corners, head, and foot of the spine and scattered surface abrasions on the covers. Several pages in Volume 1 are fully separated from the spine, while the front cover of Volume 2 is partially separated from the binding. Wear to the photographs varies throughout both volumes, with tones ranging from good to near-excellent.
Details
Born in Scotland in 1821, Alexander Gardner first viewed the work of photographer Mathew Brady in 1851 at the Great Exhibition in London. Five years later, Gardner, who had started a portrait business in Glasgow the year before, emigrated with his family to the United States and reached out to Brady, who hired him. In 1862, the talented Scotsman accompanied the Army of the Potomac in the field, and was with it during the bloody clash at Antietam in September. Gardner’s shocking photos of the carnage there, published under Brady’s name, received wide acclaim. Several months later Gardner split with Brady and formed his own Washington, D.C., studio, hiring many of Brady’s former staff.
Gardner carried on taking images of the Union army on campaign, most notably at Gettysburg, until war’s end, when he documented the execution of those convicted of President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. In 1866, Gardner published 100 wartime images in a two-volume work titled Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the War. While containing what are now considered to be among the Civil War’s most iconic photos, the set’s high price ($150, the equivalent of roughly $2,300 today) and limited print run led to the project’s financial failure. Gardner would continue in photography until 1871, when he helped start an insurance company. He died in Washington in 1882 at age 61.
Quotable
In a brief introduction to the Sketch Book, Gardner wrote: “As mementoes of the fearful struggle through which the country has just passed, it is confidently hoped that the following pages will possess an enduring interest. Localities that would scarcely have been known, and probably never remembered, … have become celebrated, and will ever be held sacred as memorable fields, where thousands of brave men yielded up their lives a willing sacrifice for the cause they had espoused. Verbal representations of such places, or scenes, may or may not have the merit of accuracy; but photographic presentments of them will be accepted by posterity with an undoubting faith.”
Value
$84,000 (price realized at Cowan’s Auctions in Cincinnati, Ohio, in November 2015). “It has been estimated that no more than 200 copies of the Sketch Book were produced, and this example includes a dated, personalized presentation in ink on the front flyleaf,” noted Wes Cowan, founder and owner of Cowan’s Auctions, at the time of the sale. “Copies of the Sketch Book with a period presentation are rarely encountered.”
