P.T. Barnum Civil War PHOTO Mathew Brady Contact Print Numbered Ltd Edition 1604

Description

P.T. Barnum Civil War PHOTO Mathew Brady Contact Print Numbered Ltd Edition 1604
P.T. Barnum Civil War PHOTO Mathew Brady Contact Print Numbered Ltd Edition 1604
Historic Americana Auctions by Saturday's Toys presents...
an authenticated original contact print from Mathew Brady's historic glass negative featuring famed showman, Phineas Taylor Barnum... better known as the legendary P.T. Barnum (1810 - 1891)... inspiration for "The Greatest Showman" starring Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron.
After reportedly selling 82 million tickets to his attraction sideshows through the years, Barnum reached his greatest renown when he merged his show with that of his foremost competitor to become the "Greatest Show on Earth"... the Barnum & Bailey Circus (later purchased by the Ringling Brothers to become "The Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus").
The contact print itself measures 4 1/8" x 3" and was originally photographed at Mathew Brady's Fulton Street Gallery in the 1860's. The studio was across the street from the American Museum in New York City, then owned by P.T. Barnum. Barnum ran the museum from 1842 thru 1865 when it was finally destroyed by fire (and becoming the subject of the 2017 film, "The Greatest Showman.")
This original Mathew Brady contact print was issued in set number
1604 of 2,500
. Print is in pristine condition; as new; preserved in dark storage for over four decades. Several of the other companion prints from the edition will later be offered exclusively through the eBay marketplace.
Even prior to his epic achievements in photographing the Civil War, Brady attracted to his studios the great and near-greats of his day... personalities such as Lincoln, Longfellow, Hawthorne, P.T. Barnum. All left behind them these magnificent portraits, undisturbed by time, fixed for posterity on priceless glass negatives. Through good luck and the remarkable foresight of a man named Frederick Hill Meserve (1865 - 1962), a singularly fine private collection of these fragile plates has survived. In 1976, these glass negatives were removed from the vaults in which they had been stored for decades, authorizing the only edition of new contact prints ever to be produced. The trustees of the Meserve Collection, custodians of the original negatives, made the new prints available in a strictly limited edition of 2,500 sets. These prints were the first made from Brady's glass negatives in approximately 100 years. When these contact prints were produced, the trustees vowed that the glass negatives would never be contacted again.
The print is hinge-mounted on a handsome folio mat, 8 3/4" by 11" and is suitable for archival framing. A facsimile signature autograph appears directly beneath the contact print. An informative backfold contains a brief description of the subject and the historical background behind the photograph. The MC colophon of the Meserve Collection is blind-embossed on the margin of each photograph for permanent identification. Here, the colophon provides the provenance required for future generations to know that this image was original to the Mathew Brady Studio, and is printed from the original glass negative in the Meserve Collection.
The individual edition number was assigned to the print on the folio mat, hand-inscribed within the embossed authentication seal of the Meserve Collection.
The collection was owned by Meserve's daughter, Dorothy Meserve Kunhardt (1900 - 1978), who placed it in trust. The broader set of prints within this limited edition were taken directly from 10 of the original Brady negatives, in collaboration with Mrs. Kunhardt and the other trustees who were charged with the supervision of the collection. Authenticated by Philip B. Kunhardt, Jr., Trustee, The Meserve Collection.
PRODUCTION NOTES:
The production of this print involved a combination of skill, time and hand craftsmanship that was truly extraordinary. Each print required more than three hours of hand work by a master technician (not including the hours of drying time). It was an extremely delicate and difficult operation, demanding exceptionally fine control -- not only of the quality of the solutions, but also of the minute changes, scarcely perceptable to anyone but an expert technician, that each print underwent. To begin, each print was exposed directly to the original glass negative, protected by a .00025-mil covering to ensure the safety of the emulsion. The paper was then immersed in a special soft developer, at an exact temperature for a critically precise period of time. The print was painstakingly carried through a series of nine separate baths and washes -- more than twice the normal number. Each extra operation was essential to further guarantee the permanence of the print. The print then went into a special gold formula solution, the best known substance for guarding the image against deterioration. The print was then agitated gently by hand by a master technician for about one hour. The finished print was air dried. (A normal dryer belt might have contaminated a print, endangering its permanence.) The result: an archivally produced print of quality rarely encountered in the history of fine photographic printmaking.
The trustees of the Meserve Collection, custodians of the original negatives, made the new prints available in a strictly limited edition of 2,500 sets. These prints were the first made from Brady's original glass negatives in approximately 100 years. When these prints were produced, the trustees vowed that the glass negatives would never be contacted again.
The Meserve-Kunhardt collection has since been acquired by Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library where the original glass plates and other historic images within the collection remain under tightly controlled oversight.
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