Lot 129: Wilson A. Bentley 1865-1931 , selected images of snowflakes

a group of 40 photomicrographs of Snowflakes, printing-out paper prints, 2 groups of 7 arranged on two mounts, with reduction notations in unidentified hands in pencil on the mounts, matted, and the remaining 26 individually matted, 1885-1923 (40)

measurements note most individual images approximately 3 by 3 in. (7.6 by 7.6 cm.)

It is largely due to Wilson A. ("Snowflake") Bentley's pioneering photomicrographs of snow crystals that the world knows that no two snowflakes are the same. In January 1885, he was the first to capture a photographic image of a snow crystal. Working with a compound microscope and bellows camera in his family's Jericho, Vermont, woodshed, Bentley caught snow on a black-painted board, examined crystals through a magnifying glass, and if he saw one that he liked, lifted it with a broom splint and placed it on a glass slide for photographing. Before his death in 1931, Bentley had photographed more than 5,000 snowflakes, half of which are included in his pioneering 1931 volume, Snow Crystals.