Gibsons of Scilly, six albums of high quality original photo...

Hammer

£2,500

Gibsons of Scilly, six albums of high quality original photographic prints. The matching set of hard backed albums with 24 pages, each page with a single high quality print of approximately 15 x 20cm (slight size variations to each). 144 photographs in total. Each print is annotated by hand in pencil, with a title beneath and longer description on the opposite page. Some descriptions fill the page, with historical background to the subject of the image. Some descriptions have been added to by another, later hand. Each album numbered 1 to 6 and annotated: 'Copyright photographs by Gibson Hous - Penzance' on the front inner cover. All very fine pictures, rare and museum quality. Subjects include some scenes of Cornish life including mining, fishing, the Floral Dance and houses in Mousehole but the majority of the images concentrate on antiquities, stone crosses and take us on a tour of ancient sites in West Cornwall. Starting with Mousehole and Paul and moving on to Lamorna, St Buryan, St Levan, Sennen, St Just and further locations around Penwith. John Gibson (1827-1920), a native of the Scilly Isles, gave up seafaring during the 1860s to set up business as a professional photographer. By 1877 he had two studios, one on St Mary's and another in Penzance. His sons Alexander and Herbert both joined the family business. Gibson & Sons established a reputation for their pictures of shipwrecks off the Isles of Scilly, with Alexander also developing an interest in photographing antiquities and archaeological sites. It is likely that the majority of the pictures in these albums were taken by Alexander in the late 1800s but that the albums were probably compiled in the 1930s or 1940s.