VITTORIO SELLA. Gvalda Glacier, from 11,300 feet on Latraldash, c. 1889-1890, Sella number CII 761. 11.1x15.3" collodion print, printed c. 1892-1893, flush mounted on thin board, mounted on 16 1/2x12 7/8" grey board. Inscribed in ink on mount recto: Caucasus Gvalda Glacier, from 11,300 feet on Latraldash II 761; Print recto embossed with artist's credit stamp in bottom right corner; Inscribed in pencil on mount verso: II 761 / VS11238; Inscribed in ink: Caucasus.

By the early 1890s the idea that photographs could be artistic was commonplace, though most artists, including the young Alfred Stieglitz, held that they should be "painterly", soft-focused pictures representing nostalgic, sentimental and romantic qualities. Running parallel to this "pictorial" sensibility were the sharp focused views made by exploration photographers like Sella who was striving to capture geological and geographical verisimilitude through powerfully composed crisp pictures. By 1910 photographers like Stieglitz and Paul Strand began to shift away from pictorial imagery in favor of more documentary, unsentimental, hard edged pictures with a "modernist" sensibility, very like the pictures that Sella had been producing all along. Artistically, Sella was ahead of his time since he had an eye for the abstract masses of mountains, as well as the details of escarpments and glaciers.

The rhythm and form of glaciers spreading from and up mountain peaks, forming rivers and bowls around and up to the highest peaks were a compelling composition for Vittorio Sella.

Excellent: Minor wear, corner and edge wear, dirt, abrasions. Mount has edge and corner wear, dirt and marks.