VITTORIO SELLA. Lapchikang Group (Mount Everest, 70 miles distant, Telephotographs from Chunjerma , 1899, Sella number HS 134-135. 6.5x18" silver gelatin print, printed 1901, mounted on 10x20.5" heavy brown board. Embossed with Vittorio Sella stamp in print lower right in each print. Inscribed in black ink mount recto: Group Du Mt. Everest (telephotographies, distance 130 km). Inscribed in pencil above print on mount recto: Makalu / 29,002 ft. Inscribed in pencil mount recto: see page 359 / Round Kangchenjunga / Fairfield / The Nepal Peaks from Hooker's Chunjerma / (gaursankar / Chonokankar [sic])/ HS 134-135

Published twice: HS 134p. 202 HS 134-135 (134 Stereo) p. 202, The Lapchikang Group from Chunjerma. / 1. Chomokankae 2. Makalu. 3. Unidentified Peak alt title Lapchikan Group (Mount Everest, 70 miles Distant) Telephotograph from Chunjerma; p. 359, the Nepal Peaks from Hooker's Chunjerma / Telephotograph. Top inscribed: above; Makalu. / 29,002 further to left

29,002 indicates Mount Everest in the view. The two views are taken from the identical location but seconds apart, as the clouds have moved, but it forms a giant stereo-view.

In 1899 Vittorio Sella joined Douglas Freshfield on an expedition to Kangchenjunga the third highest peak on planet earth and the most conspicuous of the Himalayan PeaksÂ… Freshfield wrote about this in 1903, [This is] the first Tour of Kangchenjunga made by Europeans...For almost all my illustrations I have to thank Signor Vittorio Sella, who also accompanied me. He has proved his skill as a mountain photographer in the Alps, in the Caucasus, and in Alaska. But he has never found a nobler or more varied field, or worked with more uniform success, than under the shadow of the highest Himalaya...The Himalayan chain is one thousand five hundred miles long...

"My object, as I have already said, was to make the tour - to use an Alpine phrase, ' the High-level Tour' - of Kangchenjunga, passing as near the great mountain as might prove to be possible. This circuit had never been accomplished by any European. Sir Joseph Hooker came nearest to it fifty years ago" p. 20. "To get round Kangchenjunga was not, therefore, the only object I set before me. I hoped also to be able to obtain, what the Indian Survey had been too fully employed elsewhere to be able to give geographers, a fairly accurate general delineation of the main glacial features of the group, and some material for comparing them with those of the Alps and the Caucasus. I trusted to be able to ascertain the number and length of the trunk ice- streams, to form an approximate estimate of the amount of ground covered by snow and ice, and to recognize any peculiarities that might distinguish the glaciers of Sikhim [sic] from those of more temperate regions." p. 29

"The field and object of my explorations decided, my next care was to secure suitable companions. In my friend Edmund Garwood, I found an Alpine climber who had studied the art of travel with Sir Martin Conway in Spitsbergen, had some practice in plane-table surveying, and was also a Professor of Geology and a competent photographer. Signer Vittorio Sella has been known throughout Europe for many years as one of the first of mountain photographers. In the Caucasus and Alaska, he had been singularly successful, both with telephotographic plates and in mountain panoramas taken from great heights. I thought myself fortunate, therefore, when he agreed to the conditions on which I proposed he should join my party. At his particular request I agreed to his bringing his brother. Signer Erminio Sella, to keep him company. Signer V. Sella kindly engaged for me a young Val Tournanche guide, Angelo Maquignaz, one of the family whose name is intimately associated with the Matterhorn. He also brought with him as a photographic assistant, a Piedmontese, named Emile Botta...We sailed, a party of six Europeans, from Marseilles on August 10, 1899." p. 29 Round Kangchenjunga: A Narrative of Mountain Travel and Exploration, by Douglas Freshfield, London, Edward Arnold 1903

Very Good: Moderate abrasions and dirt, corner and edge wear. Mount has wear on edges and corners, missing lower right corner and other areas on edge, tape marks mount verso.