VITTORIO SELLA. Empty Basin of Glacial Lake, Ice Pyramids, 1909, Sella number HK Unknown SC1 ASG # VS/1206. 12.6x17.6" gelatin silver print, printed c. 1909, mounted on 13.2x17.2" modern rag board.

Sella lived in an era when geographical societies, exploration and mountaineering clubs, and mercantile (research) libraries proliferated in many towns and cities. The Sella family had helped found the Italian Alpine Club in 1863; a European equivalent of the AMC co-founded in 1876 by Charles E. Fay. The Alpine Club fraternity was a small, international network modeled after the first club of its type founded in London in 1857. Members corresponded with each other, sharing publications and information about guides, porters, and climbs in foreign lands. Such clubs provided scientific, ethnographic, and intellectual materials that were a valuable cultural asset for professionals and amateur enthusiasts alike. In their lectures, photographers, naturalists, explorers, and artists often used photographs and printed illustrations as a means of disseminating information about the latest artistic and scientific ventures.

Along with being a mountaineer and photographer, Sella was also an energetic businessman. In 1886 he formed a bank, Gaudenzio Sella & Co., with three of his brothers and three cousins (as of 1999, "The Sella Group"). In 1899 he and his family started a modern viticulture program (vineyard) in Sardinia, known today as "Sella & Mosca." His other business venture was the distribution, exhibition, and sale of his mountain views. Like other large format photographers of the time - William Henry Jackson, Carleton Watkins, Bisson Freres, Roger Fenton, the Alinari Brothers, and Samuel Bourne - Sella produced a catalog of mountaineering photographs that numbered 100 views in 1882. By 1888 that number had grown to 534. Sella had a field and studio assistant named Emile Bota. He preferred to manage his own distribution. Later he worked with Spooners in London from 1882 to 1917 and when Spooner died, he moved his work to Sifton Praed. His photographs were exhibited widely in climbing, geographical, and exploration clubs and societies throughout Eurasia and North America. In the United States, the Appalachian Mountain sets were shown at over 100 venues in the 1890s and 1900s.

Excellent: Minor wear, edge wear.