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Lot 4188: WILLIAM DASSONVILLE Painter William Keith 1904

Est: $1,200 USD - $1,800 USDSold:
Andrew Smith Gallery Photography Auctions, LLCTucson, AZ, USSeptember 21, 2021

Item Overview

Description

WILLIAM DASSONVILLE. Portrait of William Keith, c. 1904. 7.8x5.8" platinum print, mounted on 8.3x6.3" paper, mounted on 10.5x8.5". Printed c. 1904. Signed in black ink on print recto.

Sold for the benefit of the Maine Coast Heritage Trust from the Estate of Jonathan Stein. Jonathan Stein was a collector with a fine sense of connoisseurship and with Daniel Wolf was a co-publisher of 4 Eliot Porter portfolios. He collected images throughout the history of Photography.

Born in Sacramento, California, in 1879 to middle-class parents, William Edward Dassonville and his family moved to San Francisco when he was a child. Given a camera at a young age, he used it to document his family and friends as well as trips across the state. He joined San Francisco's avant-garde Camera Club, attending their lectures, trips, and exhibitions as well as writing articles for Camera Craft, the club's publication. In his twenties, he became acquainted with the city's artists including William Keith, George Stirling, Maynard Dixon, and John Muir, whom he later photographed in the portrait studio he opened with Oscar Maurer in 1900.

Although the studio was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake, Dassonville managed to salvage some of his work. He supported himself by taking portraits but continued to make beautiful platinum prints of the California landscape in the pictorialist style. In the 1920s, he shifted his focus to San Francisco's waterfront, skyline, and architecture. These impressionist images were printed on Dassonville's own "Charcoal Black" paper. In response to the shortage of platinum printing paper with the onset of World War I, the photographer and self-taught chemist developed an alternative paper coating that had the tonal intricacy of platinum that was heralded by Ansel Adams, Imogene Cunningham, and many others.

Although Dassonville won numerous prizes and awards and exhibited his pictorialist landscapes alongside the work of Alfred Stieglitz, Clarence H. White, Gertrude Kasebier, and other pioneering photographers during his life, he was a relatively unknown medical photographer at Stanford University at the time of his death in 1957. His reputation was rehabilitated when two California art dealers found a trove of Dassonville's work in a pair of trunks several years ago. Like late nineteenth century paintings, Dassonville's rich tonal photographs infuse both people and places with a haunting and ethereal quality while honoring photography's place within the fine arts.

Credit:

William Keith (1838-1911) was one of the leading western landscape painters of the late nineteenth century.

Keith was born in Aberdeen, Scotland and emigrated to New York with his family in 1850. He apprenticed with a wood engraver and later worked for Harper Brothers publishers. He may first have visited California in 1858 on assignment, but also visited Scotland that same year, and worked at the London Daily News.

In 1859, Keith moved to San Francisco where he worked for an engraver before setting up his own engraving shop with a partner. He first studied painting with Samuel Brookes in 1863, and took watercolor instruction from his wife, Elizabeth Emerson, whom he married in 1864. In 1868, Keith gave up engraving to pursue painting full time, encouraged by having received a commission from a steamship company to paint landscapes along the Columbia River.

In 1869, the Keiths left for Dusseldorf, Germany where William studied with Albert Flamm and Andreas Achenbach, although he did not enroll at the Royal Academy. More influential on his style of painting were the French Barbizon painters who emphasized mood and emotion over the dramatized realism of the German romantic painters. Leaving Europe, the Keiths spent the winter of 1871-72 painting in the Boston studio of William Hahn. The Barbizon and other "modern French" paintings had become popular on the east coast, and Keith's canvases received critical acclaim at exhibitions in Boston and New York.

After returning to San Francisco in 1872, Keith joined the Bohemian Club and started exhibiting his work there. He met naturalist John Muir that same year and the two became lifelong friends. Muir led the painter into seldom visited landscapes around California, especially in his beloved Sierra Nevada and Yosemite. During the 1870s, Keith completed several eight-by-ten-foot paintings of High Sierra views which were thought to rival the monumental canvases of Thomas Hill, the other renowned California landscape painter of the era.

Elizabeth Keith died in 1882, and the next year William married Mary McHenry a pioneering female law school graduate. The couple soon left for Munich where Keith studied portrait painting for two years. Returning to California, the Keiths settled in Berkeley although William maintained a studio in San Francisco, commuting each day on the ferry. The studio burned in the earthquake and fire of 1906, and Keith is said to have lost as many as 2000 paintings.

After a trip to Alaska in 1887, Keith mounted a show at the Bohemian Club he titled Dreams of Alaska. These paintings were not literal translations of the views he sketched on location, but rather "fantasies of a poetical nature" as the catalogue from the show reported. Following his second trip to Europe, Keith's style of painting had become even looser and more evocative under influence of the French landscapists.

By the 1890s, he had pushed this "suggestive" approach to capturing the landscape into the realm of tonalism, perhaps partially influenced by George Innes who painted in Keith's studio for several weeks in 1891. The two also painted together in Monterey and Yosemite, and both were Swedenborgians, which probably drove their search for the spiritual truths of the landscape that lay behind its surface appearances. Paintings made during the last two decades of Keith's life tend to be smaller, darker, and moodier than his brighter and more evenly lighted early work.

Keith exhibited widely from the 1870s until his death, including participation in international expositions, museum shows, and solo shows in London and at the Macbeth Gallery in New York. He received numerous awards for his work. Four years after his death, Keith was honored with an entire room devoted to his paintings at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition.

Credit:

Condition Report

Excellent. Minor wear.

Notes

Shipping: $60

Payment & Shipping

Payment

Accepted forms of payment: American Express, Discover, MasterCard, Personal Check, Visa, Wire Transfer

Shipping

In House Shipping/Insurance: The Gallery has in house shipping available. Flat rate shipping including transit insurance charges are listed on each Lot for FedEx Ground shipping in the lower 48 States of USA. Lower pricing is available for US Mail shipments, please inquire. All packages are fully insured. Shipping costs to Alaska, Hawaii and foreign countries will be quoted individually. Buyers are responsible for all taxes, customs fees and VAT that may apply to their purchase and shipment. Please provide a correct street address, email address and telephone number for our shipper in order to expedite the receipt of your purchase. All items are tracked and require a signature on delivery. Items not removed or shipped from our warehouse after 30 days will be subject to a storage charge. Shipment generally occurs within ten business days after payment has been received.

Pickup at the Gallery is available by appointment beginning September 23, 2021. Buyers may make their own arrangements for shipping with pick-up at the Gallery by their designated shipping agent.

Auction Details

Terms

Live bidding may start higher or lower

Buyer's Premium

$1 - 100,000:28.0%
$100,001 - 1,000,000:20.0%
$1,000,001+:18.0%

Bidding Increments

From:To:Increment:
$0$199$20
$200$499$50
$500$999$100
$1,000$4,999$250
$5,000$9,999$500
$10,000$19,999$1,000
$20,000$49,999$2,500
$50,000$99,999$5,000
$100,000$249,999$10,000
$250,000$499,999$25,000
$500,000+$25,000

Terms & Conditions of Sale Sept 21 2101

Andrew Smith Gallery Photography Auctions LLC., is pleased to announce its Tuesday September 21, 2021, Live, Online, No Reserve, auction: PHOTOGRAPHS Man & Nature Wildness to the City. The Auction begins at 9:00 am Pacific time, Tuesday September 21, 2021 on the Invaluable Platform

Andrew Smith Gallery Photography Auctions, LLC. (Hereinafter also Gallery or Auctioneer) states herein the:

Terms and Conditions of Sale for Lots in this auction PHOTOGRAPHS Man & Nature Wildness to the City. The Auction begins at 9:00 am Pacific time, Tuesday September 21, 2021 on the Invaluable Platform

1. Bidders Bound by These Terms and Conditions of Sale set forth here are the complete and only terms and conditions on which all property is offered for sale. By registering and/or bidding on Invaluable or by written absentee or telephone bid, or by any other means, the buyer agrees to be bound by these Conditions of Sale. To be Eligible to bid the bidder must have a verified credit card in their Invaluable Platform Profile.

2. Sole Remedy for buyer in event of a dispute or any other issue, subject to Paragraph 22 Gallery Remedies below. The buyer's sole remedy under these Terms and Conditions of Sale shall be the rescission of the sale and refund of the original purchase price paid for the item, less shipping and handling, and this remedy shall be exclusive and in lieu of any other remedy which might otherwise be available to the buyer as a matter of law.

3. Right to Withdraw Lots; Errors and Omissions. Gallery reserves the right to withdraw any property at any time before the auction and shall have no liability whatsoever for such withdrawal. Offerings in this catalog are subject to errors or omissions in descriptions.

4. Hammer Price or Sale Price. The Hammer Price or Sale Price is the price at which a lot is sold or hammered down by the Auctioneer. On the fall of the auctioneer's hammer, title to the offered lot or article will pass to the highest acknowledged bidder, who thereupon immediately assumes full risk and responsibility and will within 72 hours pay the full Purchase Price. Any items unpaid after 30 days are no longer for sale.

5. Purchase Price Buyers Premium. The purchase price paid by the winning bidder is the aggregate of (a) the hammer price or sale price, (b) a Buyer's Premium of 28% (twenty-seven percent) of the first $100,000.00 of the Hammer prices of each lot and a Buyer's Premium of 20% (twenty Percent) of any amount of the Hammer price between $100,000 and $1,000,000.00 and 18% (eighteen percent) of any amount above this last amount plus any applicable, shipping, insurance, handling and processing and Tax.

6. As Arizona is a State of Origin, all buyers are subject to pay Arizona Sales tax of 8,7%, as charged by Invaluable and Gallery except those who are exempt as follows: 1) Exempt by virtue of being a reseller and Gallery has a Certificate of Resale on file by the time payment is made; 2) Exempt by virtue of being a non-profit or government entity and Gallery has a Certificate of Exemption on file by the time payment is received; 3) Live in one of 5 states that does not charge State Tax, those states being New Hampshire, Oregon, Montana, Alaska or Delaware or 4) Who are buying from outside of the USA.


7. Disputes Between Bidders Bids Delayed/Not Received. If any dispute arises between two or more bidders, the Auctioneer may decide the sale or may immediately put the lot up for sale again, and resell to the highest bidder. The decision of the Auctioneer shall be final and absolute. The Auctioneer reserves the right to reject any and all bids. Live Auctioneers bids are executed with and against outside competing telephone and absentee bids. In the case of ties, the auctioneer has sole and final discretion to determine the successful bidder. In the event of any dispute between bidders or in the event the auctioneer doubts the validity of any bid, the auctioneer shall have sole and final discretion either to determine the successful bidder or to re-offer and resell the article in dispute. If any dispute arises after the sale, our sales records shall be conclusive in every respect. It has been our early experience on Invaluable that we did not receive bids on 4 of 305 lots (1.3%) sold on Invaluable within 35 seconds after the bidder had submitted bid, so if the bidding is critical, please submit your highest bids via absentee bidding with Invaluable or the Gallery.

8. Withdraw Lots. Gallery reserves the absolute right (a) to withdraw any property at any time before its actual final sale, including during the bidding, and (b) to refuse any bid from any bidder. The Auctioneer is the sole judge as to the amount to be advanced by each succeeding bid.

9. All Lots Sold "AS IS". Neither the Gallery nor Auctioneer nor Consignor make any express or implied warranties or representations with respect to the property or correctness of the advertisement, catalog, Lot descriptions and any other medium used to announce this auction or any other description of the physical condition, attribution, provenance, genuineness, description, condition of the property, estimate of value, quality, importance, size or authenticity of the property offered and described either online or via telephone, text, email or any other communication.

10. Condition: A condition report may be obtained by viewing the online catalog, or you may contact the Gallery. Notwithstanding any condition reports or catalog descriptions provided, all lots are offered and sold AS IS In most cases, we describe the quality of the impression of the print. We have never seen perfect prints as they can have wipe marks and abrasions made by the photographer etc. Our Rankings in this auction relate to both to physical condition of the print. These subjective criteria are then combined for the final subjective ranking designation based on the many thousands of prints Andrew Smith has seen. As our condition grades go down from Excellent to Fair the handling marks noted in those descriptions go from minor visual impairments with no damage to emulsion to major visual impairments with damaged emulsion.

Excellent: Normal minor wear, abrasions, dirt, spots and scratches. Mounts and margins can have other problems and the print can still be excellent.

Very Good: Mild wear indicates there is some visual impact, small abrasion, scuffs, small emulsion loss spots bent. It has very little negative impact on the visual enjoyment of the print. Mounts and margins can have other problems and the print can still be Very Good.

Good: Indicates noticeable abrasions, stains, scuffs, spots, scratches and dirt on the print. Mounts and margins can have other serious problems and the print can still be Good.

Fair: Noticeable and severe physical conditions such as heavy abrasions, scuffs, staining, scratches, moderate emulsion loss, handling dents to the print is our lowest rating. Mounts and margins can no serious problems and the print can still be Fair.

11. Estimates: Low Estimate is the lowest price at which multiple buyers would expect to find a shopping bargain. High Estimate is what a dealer might pay for the print when buying for resale.

12. No Reserve Auction: There is no reserve above the starting price.

13. Bidding Increments:

$20 increments up to $200
$50 increments to $500
$100 increments to $1,000
$250 increments to $5,000
$500 increments to $10,000
$1,000 increments to $20,000
$2,500 increments to $50,000
$5,000 increments to $100,000
$10,000 increments to $250,000
$25,000 increments to $500,000

14. Copyright: Neither the Gallery nor Auctioneer nor Consignor make any representations whatsoever that the Purchaser of a work of art will acquire any reproduction rights thereto and copyright to work. Purchaser's ownership of the work shall remain subject to the copyrights of the artist.

15. Amending Catalog, Entire Agreement: This on-line catalog may be amended 2 hours before posting time and represents Andrew Smith Gallery Photography Auctions LLC (Gallery) entire agreement with any and all Purchasers of the property listed herein.

16. Institutional Buyers may make separate payment arrangements to coincide with their fiscal year planning. These arrangements must be discussed and approved prior to the auction.

17. Terms for Payments on all Purchases: All payments on lots that are taxed must be made to the Invaluable payments system. If you are exempt from taxes payment may be made directly to Andrew Smith Gallery Photography Auctions LLC.
Accepted are cash, wire transfer ACH payment to the Gallery or Invaluable, personal check, Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Invaluable payment system. All monies shall be made payable to Andrew Smith Gallery Photography Auctions, LLC. At the Gallery's discretion, payment will not be deemed to be complete until funds represented by checks or credit cards have been processed by Gallery's bank, usually within 1-3 days.

18. In House Shipping/Insurance: The Gallery has in house shipping available. Flat rate shipping including transit insurance charges are listed on each Lot for FedEx Ground shipping in the lower 48 States of USA. Lower pricing is available for US Mail shipments, please inquire. All packages are fully insured. Shipping costs to Alaska, Hawaii and foreign countries will be quoted individually. Buyers are responsible for all taxes, customs fees and VAT that may apply to their purchase and shipment. Please provide a correct street address, email address and telephone number for our shipper in order to expedite the receipt of your purchase. All items are tracked and require a signature on delivery. Items not removed or shipped from our warehouse after 30 days will be subject to a storage charge. Shipment generally occurs within ten business days after payment has been received.


19. Pickup at the Gallery is available by appointment beginning September 23, 2021. Buyers may make their own arrangements for shipping with pick-up at the Gallery by their designated shipping agent.

20. Authenticity of Work Return: A condition report may be obtained by viewing the online catalog or by contacting the Gallery. Notwithstanding any condition reports or catalog descriptions provided, all lots are offered and sold AS IS in accordance with paragraph 9 of the Procedures, Terms and Conditions of Auction. However, if within 21 calendar days after the receipt of the purchase of any lot, as long as the art was received within 30 calendar days of the Auction date, the purchaser provides two opinions by recognized authorities on the artist, and gives notice in writing to the Gallery that the lot is not authentic, and within 7 calendar days of such notice the purchaser returns the lot to the Gallery in the same condition as when sold, the Gallery will refund the full purchase price.

21. Limitation of Rights. Any right of the purchaser under this agreement or under the law shall not be assignable and shall be enforceable only by the original purchaser and not by any subsequent owner or any person who shall subsequently acquire any interest. No purchaser shall be entitled to any remedy, relief or damages beyond return of the property, rescission of the sale and refund of the purchase price; and without limitation, no purchaser shall be entitled to damages of any kind.

22. Gallery Remedies: These Procedures, Terms and Conditions of Auction and any other applicable conditions, as well as the Purchasers and Gallery's rights and obligations herein shall be governed by, construed and enforced in accordance with the laws of the State of Arizona. Purchases that have gone unpaid thirty days (30 calendar days) after the sale are past due and subject to any or all of the following including without limitation. Upon purchase, property is held for sale and payment for 30 days. If unpaid after 30 days the property is no longer for sale; The Gallery will (a) Dispute the purchase on the Auction Platform; (b) hold the Purchaser liable for the purchase price stated on the invoice; (c) cancel the sale and retain as liquidated damages any and all payments made by the Purchaser; (d) resell the property privately or at public auction on three days notice to the Purchaser for the payment of any deficiency in the purchase price and all costs including handling charges, warehousing, the commissions, attorney's fees, any and all other auction-related charges due and incidental damages. In the event of a default, the Gallery reserves the right to charge the Purchaser's credit card on file in the full amount owed as stated on the invoice.

23. Full Payment Non Transferable: In order to prevent inaccuracy in delivery or inconvenience in the settlement of a purchase, no lot can be transferred. Each buyer must pay for the whole of his purchases before any lot can be removed.

24. Not Assignable: The benefits of these warranties are not assignable and are applicable only to the original buyer of the lot, and are conditioned on the buyer returning the work in the same condition as at time of sale and in the time period specified.

25. Misc: Dimensions are given in inches, with height preceding width in all cases. For prints, if the margins are known or believed to be full this is stated. Illustrations in the catalogue are for identification only and should not be used as a basis for determining the condition of the lot. First Date used in the lot description entries refers to the creation of the negative or original electronic capture; a second date, which often follows the medium or size, indicates the approximate print date. The term "signed" means that, in our opinion, the signature is by the artist.

Shipping Terms

In House Shipping/Insurance: The Gallery has in house shipping available. Flat rate shipping including transit insurance charges are listed on each Lot for FedEx Ground shipping in the lower 48 States of USA. Lower pricing is available for US Mail shipments, please inquire. All packages are fully insured. Shipping costs to Alaska, Hawaii and foreign countries will be quoted individually. Buyers are responsible for all taxes, customs fees and VAT that may apply to their purchase and shipment. Please provide a correct street address, email address and telephone number for our shipper in order to expedite the receipt of your purchase. All items are tracked and require a signature on delivery. Items not removed or shipped from our warehouse after 30 days will be subject to a storage charge. Shipment generally occurs within ten business days after payment has been received.

Pickup at the Gallery is available by appointment beginning September 23, 2021. Buyers may make their own arrangements for shipping with pick-up at the Gallery by their designated shipping agent.

Buyers Premium

Purchase Price Buyers Premium. The purchase price paid by the winning bidder is the aggregate of (a) the hammer price or sale price, (b) a Buyer's Premium of 28% (twenty-seven percent) of the first $100,000.00 of the Hammer prices of each lot and a Buyer's Premium of 20% (twenty Percent) of any amount of the Hammer price between $100,000 and $1,000,000.00 and 18% (eighteen percent) of any amount above this last amount plus any applicable, shipping, insurance, handling and processing and Tax.

Arizona Tax Unless Exempt

As Arizona is a State of Origin, all buyers are subject to pay Arizona Sales tax of 8.7%, as charged by Invaluable and Gallery except those who are exempt as follows: 1) Exempt by virtue of being a reseller and Gallery has a Certificate of Resale on file by the time payment is made; 2) Exempt by virtue of being a non-profit or government entity and Gallery has a Certificate of Exemption on file by the time payment is received; 3) Live in one of 5 states that does not charge State Tax, those states being New Hampshire, Oregon, Montana, Alaska or Delaware or 4) Who are buying from outside of the USA. Buyers are responsible for all taxes, customs fees and VAT that may apply to their purchase and shipment