Sir John Frederick William Herschel (English, 1792-1872)
"No 351 Turin with the chain of the Alps. From the roof of the Observatory”, 1824
Camera lucida drawing, pencil on paper
20.2 x 31.0 cm on 25.2 x 38.6 cm paper
Numbered, signed, dated and titled “No 351 / JFW Herchel del. Cam. Luc. / 1824 / Turin with the chain of the Alps. From the roof of the Observatory.” in ink in border, and “Coord of / Roche Moulon x = 7.065, y = 3.65 / Dome des Jesuites x = 7.4, y = 2.65 / Clocher des Jesuites x = 7.81, y = 2.95 / Turin from the Observatory” in pencil. Inscribed “Turin from Observatory” in pencil on verso

Herschel, now travelling with just a servant on his second Grand Tour, wrote to his friend Charles Babbage that "the view of the Alps from the observatory Roof at Turin... is the finest thing conceivable we missed this when we were there together... this is the most delicious spot on earth as you would say if you saw it in such weather & were enjoying there the luxury of repose, good feeding, & pleasant society after crossing Mt. Cenis in the snow and being at once scorched & frozen & buried alive." To his mother, he enthused that "the glorious spectacle of the Alps which surround the town like a bulwark of ice at the distance of fifty to a hundred miles... is the finest sight in the world;" he promised that "you shall see a drawing of it I took from the top of the Observatory yesterday."

John Beasley Greene (American, born in France, 1832-1856)
El-Kantara Bridge, Constantine, Algeria, 1855-1856
Lightly coated salt print from a paper negative
23.5 x 29.4 cm

From 1855-1856, Greene produced a series of images of Constantine, an ancient city dramatically perched on a mountaintop in Algeria, the last he made before his death at the early age of 24. In the light of North Africa, Greene doesn’t exactly represent places, even when he records houses, ruined aqueducts, roads, bridges or burial sites, he creates tonal maps. This late work is about feeling. In Constantine, dwellings on a mountain seem to be outcroppings of the rocks themselves. Young Greene was close to dying; he wanted his pictures to look like how he felt.

John Beasley Greene (American, born in France, 1832-1856)
Forêt de Fontainebleau, 1852-1853
Waxed paper negative
24.8 x 31.7 cm

Carleton E. Watkins(American, 1829-1916)
The Garrison, Columbia River, Oregon, circa 1867
Mammoth plate albumen print
40.3 x 52.7 cm mounted on 53.0 x 67.0 cm board
Titled in an unidentified contemporary calligraphic hand in ink and numbered "23" in an unidentified modern hand in pencil on mount. Two San Francisco Museum of Modern Art exhibition labels on verso.

Watkins had an affinity for small, rustic structures that sometimes took visual priority over the nominal subject, as exemplified here in The Garrison, Colombia River in which the Fort Cascades military garrison and notable landmark Castle Rock are miniaturized on the horizon. The Garrison is one of a series of photographs taken along Oregon’s Columbia River in 1867 during which trip Watkins photographed the geology of Oregon, particularly the chain of volcanic mountains capping the coastal range. Most modern critics consider Watkins' 1867 Columbia River photographs among his finest work. A print of The Garrison was included in the selection of photographs that Watkins exhibited in 1868 and 1869 at the Mechanics’ Institute Fair in San Francisco.
                    
Other known prints:
Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento
California State Library, Sacramento
Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin
Royal British Columbia Museum, Victoria, Canada
Stanford University Libraries, Palo Alto
Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg, Scarsdale
Mr. and Mrs. Keith Tillstrom, Portland
Private collection, Boston

Captain Linnaeus Tripe (English, 1822-1902)
Beekinpully, Veerabuddradroog, Madras, India, December 1857-January 1858
Albumenized salt print from a waxed paper negative
23.9 x 36.6 cm mounted on 43.0 x 56.5 cm paper
Printed "7" adhered above upper right corner of image, on mount

Joseph vicomte Vigier (French, 1821-1894)
"Bagnères de Luchon. La Vallée de Luchon prise de la promenade de la Pique.  au 1er plan coule la Pique; au second à  gauche est la montagne de Saint Mamet, Derrière celle de Guardera; à droite, Derrière la tour de Castelvieih, la forêt du même nom : au dernier plan les glaciers de Vénasque.", 1853
Salt print from a paper negative
24.8 x 36.0 cm

The Vallée de Luchon taken from the promenade of the Pique River. The Pique flows in the foreground; in the middle ground at left is Saint Mamet Mountain, behind that Guardera Mountain; at right, behind the tower of Castelvieilh, the forest of Castelvieilh; in the background the glaciers of Vénasque.

William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877)
Loch Katrine, 1844
Salt print from a calotype negative
17.0 x 20.9 cm on 18.6 x 22.9 cm paper
"LA36" in black ink on verso

The setting for Scott’s The Lady of the Lake, Loch Katrine must have seemed magical when Talbot and Henneman approached it. They had just left Duone Castle, taking advantage of a recently constructed road to penetrate an area formerly accessible only to the clans and to the occasional intrepid traveler. The high vantage point shown here, looking down from the hills, displays a picturesque area of unspoiled beauty. Talbot was to select it as plate twelve for his Sun Pictures in Scotland.  In contrast to the rainy days Talbot had endured since arriving in Scotland, the sun turned out in its full glory, and his wife, Constance, wrote back that she was “charmed to hear that you had such fine weather for Loch Katrine – &c – and I am very glad that you did not turn back at Edinburgh as I fancied you would.” (Letter, 25 October 1844, LA 44-78, Talbot Collection, the British Library, London; Talbot Correspondence Project Document no. 05109).  

This image is Plate 12 in Sun Pictures in Scotland, 1845

This negative (1937-1339), and indeed most of those that Talbot made on this Scottish trip, survives in good condition in the Talbot Collection, National Media Museum, Bradford.

Gustave Le Gray (French, 1820-1884)
Effet de soleil dans les nuages - Océan, Normandy, 1856
Albumen print from a collodion negative
30.7 x 40.3 cm mounted on 53.0 x 67.5 cm paper
Photographer's red signature stamp. Photographer's blindstamp on mount.

One in a series of poetic and meditative seascapes that brought Le Gray international acclaim for their technical and artistic achievement, this print demonstrates his mastery of the medium with a tour de force combination of clouds, empty seas and sun. The seascapes Le Gray created between 1856 and 1858 are the works for which he is most celebrated. This print has exceptionally rich tones, and overall it is in a fine state of preservation.

Henri Le Secq (French, 1818-1882)
Le chêne dénudé, 1870s, paper negative 1850s
Photolithograph
51.2 X 37.8 cm on 72.4 x 54.6 cm paper
Signed in the negative

"If the photolithograph is on tan-toned chine collée, it is likely printed by Lemercier using his method, which was invented in 1851 and publicized a few years later using proofs after Le Secq's views of medieval architecture. However, I don't think the Lemercier portfolio of Le Secq's works from 1853-54 included any views of nature, and from the looks of it, your work perhaps isn't by Lemercier.
 
It's more likely that your Chêne dénudé is printed using the "encre grasse" method of Thiel Ainé et Cie, a firm that developed a photolithographic technique and collaborated several times with Le Secq, each time using his old paper negatives from the early 1850s. Thiel patented the technique on 14 February 1876, but Le Secq mentions in a letter of 8 May 1875 to Nègre (the only surviving letter between them) that he was working on publishing his early negatives in an "encre grasse" method. This indicates that he was already working with Thiel by that time. Jan Buerger's article in Image (1980, vol. 23, no. 1), outlines what was known about Le Secq and Thiel's collaboration, in particular for the photolithographic portfolio of Le Secq's views of Chartres that is now in the GEH. In the article, Buerger also notes that one of Le Secq's negatives of Fontainebleau from 1852 survives as a photolithograph (which she writes is housed in a "Paris market"), likely made at the time of Le Secq and Thiel's collaboration, although she proposed no date for that work. As it stands, the Fontainbleau picture is the closest to your subject, which suggests that he might have had a landscape portfolio planned. Lastly, Eugenia Janis in her book on Le Secq dates the publication of a related Thiel portfolio of photolithographs, titled Études de premeris plans d'après nature, to 1879. According to Janis, the latter portfolio includes views of architecture only, most from negatives dating circa 1852.
 
So I'd say from the information that I could gather above, the date range for your particular photolithograph is circa 1875-1879."

Roger Fenton (English, 1819-1869)
Kadikoi, from Camp of Horse Artillery, in the Crimea, 1855
Salt print from a collodion negative
25.3 x 34.9 cm, mounted on 50.9 x 64.6 cm heavy paper
Photographer's and publisher's credit and title lithographed on mount

Made during the Crimean War, this image of the road to Balaklava running past the village of Kadikoi reflects Fenton's mastery of pictorial composition which uses the motif of the serpentine road to lead the eye into the landscape. While soldiers and camp tents are visible in the foreground, the tumult of war is minimized and overshadowed by the expansive vista Fenton's lens has captured.

Sir John Frederick William Herschel (English, 1792-1872)
"No 507 The Lake of Brienz from Iseltwald”, 23 September 1821
Camera lucida drawing, pencil on paper
20.3 x 30.6 cm
Numbered, signed, dated and titled “No 507 / JFW Herschel delin. Cam. Luc. / Sep. 23, 1821. / The Lake of Brienz from Iseltwald.” in ink. Inscribed “Iseltwald” two times in pencil on verso

Sir John, along with his wife, daughters and friends, based paintings on his original camera lucida drawings. In 1844 he wrote to a friend: "thank you for the very, very sweet picture you have created our of my poor sketch of Iseltwald, which brings back the scene in so lively a manner that it makes 20 years disappear and I can fancy myself just disembarking from the old flap sailed boat among the merry groupe  you have inserted in your foreground... I hope you will not hesitate to make use of any of the subjects in my portfolio which will at all times be at your command."

Notebook, JFWH's Tour in France 1821 July 21st to Aug 31st. W0054, Herschel Collection, the Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin