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Gelatin silver print, printed in 1900s
cm 40 x 30 (cm 37,5 x 28 picture) | 15.7 x 11.8 in. (14.8 x 11 in. picture)
Photographer's credit blindstamp on the image
Framed
It is difficult today to imagine the challenges faced by a photographer in the late 1800s who have to capture the mountains in order to highlight their majesty. While small portable cameras could certainly be used to do that (Sella himself carried a 9x12 Kodak, though only for snapshots), achieving the kind of extraordinary quality seen in these images required the use of large, complicated view cameras. These allowed to get from large negatives for contact surprisingly detailed pictures. To do so, one also had to be inventive to develope methods to protect the camera tripod from the wind and have the mountaineer’s skill to reach the right vantage points. This explains how Vittorio Sella was able, in 1885, to produce a meticulous eleven-shot study of the Matterhorn summit, seen here shrouded in clouds. Equally remarkable is his photograph of K2, taken in June 1909 from a nearby high peak that was later named after him. Captured with a 20x25 cm English Dallmeyer camera, the image shows the towering mountain from below, emphasizing its upward thrust. The exceptional quality of Sella’s prints came also from his unique use of a personal double-tone toning process. One final, rare element of this photograph stays in the signatures at the bottom—those of the climbers from the 1954 Italian expedition that, for the first time, successfully reached the summit of K2.
cm 40 x 30 (cm 37,5 x 28 picture) | 15.7 x 11.8 in. (14.8 x 11 in. picture)
Photographer's credit blindstamp on the image
Framed
Literature
La montagna rilevata. Fotografie dell'Ottocento dalla collezione Fineschi, Skira, 2009, p. 50
Vittorio Sella (Biella 1859 – 1943) inherited his passion for photography from his father, a textile entrepreneur and author of the treatise “Il plico fotografico” and combined it with the passion for the mountains acquired from his uncle Quirino, founder of the Italian Alpine Club (CAI). A skilled mountaineer, he used his 30x36 cm view camera to document the expeditions that took him between 1889 and 1909 to the Caucasus, Alaska, the Ruwenzori, the Karakoram, and both sides of the Alps. Over the years, he employed a variety of photographic techniques, from different-sized collodion plates to bromide plates, and even invented sophisticated transport systems, such as padded backpacks, to carry cameras, glass plates, and chemical supplies to mountain summits. His works had also great success at major international exhibitions, and it is thanks to him that this genre of photography came to be known as foto alpinismo (mountain photography), even when practiced far from the Alps. As an entrepreneur, he also managed the family’s textile mill and contributed to the founding of the Sella & Mosca winery. It is difficult today to imagine the challenges faced by a photographer in the late 1800s who have to capture the mountains in order to highlight their majesty. While small portable cameras could certainly be used to do that (Sella himself carried a 9x12 Kodak, though only for snapshots), achieving the kind of extraordinary quality seen in these images required the use of large, complicated view cameras. These allowed to get from large negatives for contact surprisingly detailed pictures. To do so, one also had to be inventive to develope methods to protect the camera tripod from the wind and have the mountaineer’s skill to reach the right vantage points. This explains how Vittorio Sella was able, in 1885, to produce a meticulous eleven-shot study of the Matterhorn summit, seen here shrouded in clouds. Equally remarkable is his photograph of K2, taken in June 1909 from a nearby high peak that was later named after him. Captured with a 20x25 cm English Dallmeyer camera, the image shows the towering mountain from below, emphasizing its upward thrust. The exceptional quality of Sella’s prints came also from his unique use of a personal double-tone toning process. One final, rare element of this photograph stays in the signatures at the bottom—those of the climbers from the 1954 Italian expedition that, for the first time, successfully reached the summit of K2.
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