拍品专文
Charles Piazzi Smyth was the Astronomer Royal for Scotland and professor of Practical Astronomy at Edinburgh University. In 1856, he married and left with his wife, Jessie (née Duncan), for an expedition to Teneriffe from where he made experiments on telescopic vision and collected botanical specimens. He was persuaded by Sir John Herschel to take photographic apparatus along to document the trip, and in 1858, published the first book illustrated with stereoscopic photographs Teneriffe: An Astronomer's Experiment. He developed a miniature camera which enabled him, with its fast speed, to make almost instantaneous photographs including that showing the peasants in Novgorod market place on his visit to Russia in 1859. When he visited Egypt in 1865, he combined the use of the miniature camera with magnesium flashlight to photograph the interior of the Great Pyramid, again publishing examples in his book A Poor Man's Photography at the Great Pyramid in 1865.
The three lantern slides in this lot are from a series which was produced for commercial sale, probably by John Smith Pollitt, who sold boxed sets of fifty for five guineas. The stereoscopic diapositives with their hand-written labels seem to have been made only for personal use. The bulk of Smyth's archive of slides is now on loan to the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh. No other examples have been recorded at auction.
A list of titles is available on request.
The three lantern slides in this lot are from a series which was produced for commercial sale, probably by John Smith Pollitt, who sold boxed sets of fifty for five guineas. The stereoscopic diapositives with their hand-written labels seem to have been made only for personal use. The bulk of Smyth's archive of slides is now on loan to the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh. No other examples have been recorded at auction.
A list of titles is available on request.