VITTORIO SELLA. Mustagh [sic] Tower, Mitre Peak etc. at sunset from Camp XII sunset over Baltoro Peaks, 1909, Sella number HK SC1002. 11.4x15.3" gelatin silver print, printed c. 1909, mounted on 14x18" heavy gray board. Inscribed in white ink on mount recto: Himalayas / Mitre Peak / Mustagh [sic] Tower. Embossed with Vittorio Sella stamp in lower right of print. Inscribed in pencil on mount verso: The Mustagh Tower at Sunset / from Camp XII / HK 1002 (2003 Catalogue) / 10 Loan / Mustagh Tower Mitre Peak

These vintage gelatin silver prints are very likely the finest artistic views and documents of a mountain range ever made by the greatest mountaineering photographer in the history of photography. Drawing on forty years of experience as a mountain climber, technician and artist, Sella captured K2 and its retinue of massive peaks, along the Baltoro Glacier, from all sides and in all moods.

Mitre Peak 6,010 m 19,718 ft. marks the confluence of the Baltoro Glacier with the Gasherbrum branch arriving from the SE and the Goodwin Austin branch arriving from the NE. Muztagh Tower is 7,276 m 23,871 ft. is the 90th highest mountain.

During his lifetime Vittorio Sella was celebrated for the photographs he exhibited from his daring expeditions. According to one reviewer, his annual exhibition of mountain photographs at the Alpine Club in London was "inconveniently crowded." Sella sold his prints to people from Italy, France, Germany, and England, and was represented by a London dealer named Spooner. His photographs satisfied a growing public hunger to know more about distant places on the earth that few would ever see first-hand, while providing a satisfying blend of artistic, scientific, intellectual, and even spiritual elements. Sella's primary goal was to provide the empirical evidence of what he and his party had seen on their expeditions, and to convey reality as it was perceived by the human eye. His approach was governed by rigorous technical and aesthetic standards that he called "la realta severe" - severe reality.

Excellent: Minor wear, edge wear. Mount has minor edge and corner wear, tape residue verso.