Photograph of John Brown
BROWN, JOHN (1800-59). Photograph with clipped inscription and lithographic signature ("Your friend John Brown") mounted below, circa 1859. Oval, 252 x 205 mm., including mount, slightly browned and faded; matted. A large, three-quarter-length sepia photograph of Brown.
"John Brown came close to igniting the Civil War a full year before Fort Sumter by organizing a raid on a government arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, with the plan of arming a slave insurrection. He was quickly captured by troops under U.S. Army Colonel Robert Lee and later executed." Wesley Marans. Provenance: Cornelius Greenway Collection (sale, Part I, Sotheby Parke Bernet, Nov. 20, 1970, lot 149). M. Wesley Marans Collection, Christie's April 17, 1996, lot 121.
With—STOWE, Harriet Beecher (1811-96). Cabinet photograph signed ("Harriet Beecher Stowe"), by Hastings, Boston (imprint on mount verso), circa 1876. 165 x 108 mm. (6½ x 4¼ in.) including mount, some minor soiling. A bust-length profile portrait of the author, signed on the mount. "Author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, the story of a faithful black slave and his villainous overseer, Simon Legree - the book credited with helping to precipitate the Civil War. She claimed that God wrote it, and she merely took dictation"--W.M. Provenance: Cornelius Greenway Collection, Part I, Sotheby's Park Bernet, Nov. 20, 1970, lot 4. M. Wesley Marans Collection, Christie's April 17, 1996 lot 93.