It was lot 21 in Lawson's sale of Fine Decorative Art, Australiana & War + Affordable Art, Books & Table Lots.
The album was catalogued as "Norman Selfe American Scenery Album, Edweard Muybridge 1884. 360 Photos of American Scenery Collected by Norman Selfe on the spots represented in 1884".
The catalogue entry goes on to say that the album includes scenes of New Zealand, Honolulu, San Francisco & California, Arlington Hotel; Santa Barbara, Humboldt Bay; North California, Oregon, Columbia River, Washington State, Vancouver's Island & Washington Territory, Puget Sound Sawmills, American Steamers, Yosemite Valley, State of Nevada & Indian Chief, Salt Lake City, Colorada Springs, Colorado, Illinois, Missouri, Waltham Watch Factory, New York State, White Mountains; New Hampshire, The River; St Lawrence, City of Rochester, Toronto including Viewing of Burning Toronto Mail Office, Montreal, New York City, Albany, Niagara.
The mention of Muybridge in the catalogue immediately lifted eyebrows. He was one of the most important photographers in the 19th century playing a pivotal role in the development of cinematic projection.
However it was the mention of name of Selfe, ironically close to the name of a modern form of photography that has young people going hoopla, that should have set thought processes in motion rather than the horses whose hoof to camera set trip wires creating Muybridge's images in motion, that ought to have alerted librarians and museum curators to the lot's potential.
Curiously Selfe and Muybridge were brothers-in-law. A Sydney suburb, Normanhurst, was named after Selfe's forename.
And extraordinarily, the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB) mentions in its entry on Norman Self (1839-1911), engineer and educationist, such a photo album. Selfe was the son of a plumber civil engineering genius. Born in Kingston on Thames near London he arrived in Sydney with his parents in January 1855.
The dictionary, commonly referred to as the ADB continues:
"At 17 he was apprenticed to P. N. Russell & Co., reputedly becoming chief draftsman before completing his articles; while with the firm he designed gunboats for service in the Maori wars. "
There he may have come into contact with one of the company's most famous progenies, the artist John Peter Russell, although Russell rejected his engineering inheritance to spend time with Monet and members of the School of Paris of the day on Belle Isle off Brittany.
Selfe created the first double-ended screw ferry "Wallaby". He built the first concrete quay wall in Sydney Harbour and most of the wharves for deep-sea vessels. He designed the first ice-making machines in New South Wales; he also introduced the first lifts, and patented an improved system of wool-pressing and carried out many other hydraulic and electric light installations in Sydney.
"In 1884-85 Selfe visited seventy cities in North America and Europe, inspecting engineering works and notable bridges," the ADB entry continues.
The title page of the album says the photographs were collected in 1884. It does not mention any connection with Sir William Dixson but the admittedly less authoritative Wikipedia, albeit with the benefit of more up-to-date information, says Selfe set up a new office in Lloyd's Chambers at 348 George Street where he operated the consultancy until his death in 1911.
"In the late 1890s he employed William Dixson as an engineer", the entry continues which gives one public library at least an interest in the lot
William was the eldest surviving son of tobacco manufacturer and philanthropist Sir Hugh Dixson.
The Dixson family's name is commemorated in the Dixson collection of the State Library of NSW.
Unfortunately public institutions, libraries in particular, do not comment on failed bids, except sometimes under the pressure of FOIs and some not even then as this writer has found all too often. The National Library is believed to have been aware of the offering.
Some of the state libraries have also lost much of their curatorial respect in the area of cataloguing, through redundancies, natural age retirement and the transition to Google self-help librarianship which, on the other hand, is a great aid to the "sleeper-walkers."
Some curators may even have forgotten their ABDs. However, the volume is reliably said to have gone to a private buyer.
Sydney print dealer Josef Lebovic believes he was the under-bidder. He declined to take the bidding further because the photographer or photographers could not be identified and failure to firm up this and the unity of the 360 prints involved made it unattractive as a punt thereafter.
Some of the photographs individually would have value, but it could hang around as stock for some time.
Lawson's described the condition as fair, with some tears to the pages and age related wear, but in general good condition.
Lawson's Luke Jones told the Australian Art Sales Digest that Selfe was the brother-in-law of Muybridge, through whom by family association the album was passed down to the vendor.
The album had been slated for an earlier sale but withdrawn when its possible value emerged.
Selections of the Kingston Upon Thames lad Eadweard Muybridges' horse studies have nudged six figure prices at auctions in New York. In 2018 at Sotheby's, one lot estimated at $US25,000 to $US35,000 made $US75,000 including premium.
Muybridge's horse, animal and humans-in-motion photographs have great significance in the visual arts.
His work has greatly influenced artists from Giacomo Balla to Andy Warhol.
An outstanding painting illustrating the effects for which he was championed, Dynamism of a Dog in Motion was in an exhibition of art sent to the Art Gallery of NSW in one of the first modern times modern art blockbusters in the 1970s.
Now a Muybridge book of photographs would have been quite a find, albeit for the art and mechanics of photography rather than the civic visionary nature of the art and the other potential connections of craft such as the Maori wars.
