WILBUR WRIGHT

Details
WILBUR WRIGHT

The First Successful Airplane Flight of the Wright Brothers, Kitty Hawk, North Carolina

Gelatin silver print. 1903. Signed and inscribed To Luis Marden with regards in ink on the recto. 6 5/8 x 9 3/8in., mounted. Framed.
Provenance
Ex-collection Luis Marden, famed National Geographic photographer.
Literature
First Photographs, p. 28; Wilbur and Orville, Biography of the Wright Brothers, pp. 136-37.

Lot Essay

On December 17, 1903, three days following Wilbur's unsuccessful attempt to fly, Orville lay prone on the lower wing, Wilbur ran alongside; the estimated distance and time: 120 feet in 12 seconds. The Wright brothers photographically documented all trials, this first flight, and all subsequent flights and are known to have made their own glass plate negatives and printed from their darkroom. Wilbur or Orville would have set up the shot in advance, aiming the camera lens to the end of the sled, the point of departure. John T. Daniels, of the Kill Devil Light Station, manned the camera, and as the plane reached the appropriate position, snapped the shutter.