Lot 15: CHARLES LEANDER WEED (1824-1903) The Fallen Tree Hercules, 325 Feet Long.

CHARLES LEANDER WEED (1824-1903)
The Fallen Tree Hercules, 325 Feet Long. Mammoth-plate albumen print, the image measuring 20 3/8x15 1/2 inches (51.8x39.4 cm.), the mount 25 3/8x19 1/2 inches (64.5x49.5 cm.), with period notations, including a variant of the title, in pencil, in an unknown hand, on mount verso; in a period frame. 1864

Charles L. Weed is thought to be the first photographer to capture views of Yosemite. His first expedition began in 1859, during which he produced a number of stereo views and approximately 20 10x14-inch plates. He returned in 1864, the same year a bill was passed by Abraham Lincoln known as the Yosemite Grant, which made the valley federally protected land. During this second expedition, Weed traveled with a mammoth-plate camera, which he used to produce a large number of photographs that were subsequently published in a scarce set under the title Yosemite Valley, Mariposa County, and the Big Trees, Calaveras County, California. In the photograph offered here, and a few others in the set, Weed used fellow expeditioners to express the vast scale of the landscape, as the otherworldly topography was completely foreign to most at the time.