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(New here? Read Part 1 first!)

I have a couple bits of news, and I’d like to give you a more detailed tour of the print. I’m still ruminating on the fate of the photograph, but there’s plenty to do in the meantime …

First, I have a date with an appraiser to do the first detailed examination of the print. I’ll be sharing that process as it unfolds, in early January.

Second, the piece will soon be on display at the Portland Art Museum, as part of the “Riches of a City” exhibition, running from February through May of 2011.

Now, on to the main course. The picture below was taken in a bright examination room, so my apologies for the reflections. I’ll be posting better photos after the initial appraisal inspection!

This is a picture of my copy of Frederick Evans’ “A Sea of Steps.”

What you see here is the photograph, mounted on card stock, behind glass. You can’t see the frame, but you can see my finger down there in the lower left. Hah.

The subject of Evans’ photograph is a stairwell at Wells Cathedral in Somerset, England. More specifically, this is the intersection of two flights of stairs: the door at the top of the stairwell leads to the Vicar’s Close (where the residents of the cathedral live), and the “swell” on the right hand side leads to the Chapter House (the official meeting room).

What makes this image significant is its role in helping establish photography as an art in its own right. Back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, photography was a very popular curiosity. Many photographers attempted to reconcile photography with the fine arts by way of elaborate manipulations to make it a human endeavor, not just a mechanical and chemical process. Evans rejected that idea, and sought to create purely photographic images that were beautiful, representational, and undeniably fine art.

His process was painstaking. He would camp out for weeks in a location to find the perfect perspective on his subject, the perfect time of day, and perfect exposure for his film. No artificial illumination, no Photoshop, no creative cropping, and no intervention. What you see in this photograph is what he saw in that stairwell, in that moment.

This image is considered by many to be his finest; the culmination of his technical skill and artistic vision.

The negative for this image was created in 1903, and this print was made sometime before 1915. The first world war effectively ended Evans’ career in photography when platinotype (platinum) photography became prohibitively expensive.

Fast forward about one hundred years, and here it is.

The card stock it’s mounted on bears the faint remains of his hand drawn borders. The “empty” space underneath the photo contains the imprint of his name, the title of the piece, and his blind stamp — basically an un-inked stamp of his initials, pressed into the paper.

The print is a bit smaller than the original negative, at about 9.5 x 7.5 inches. That’s a big sheet of film: more than two thousand times larger than the sensor in the digital camera used to capture the image above. To make the print, Evans placed the negative directly on top of the paper, and turned on a light for a few seconds to expose it — simple, eh?

We can tell the paper uses a silver emulsion because of the way it has faded over the last century. The fading is most evident in the lower corners of the photo, which appear gray. It’s actually silver when you see it in person, and reflects the light from the room.

The fading has also revealed retouched areas within the photograph, because the retouching pigments fade at a different rate than the emulsion. If you look at the top edge of the photo, towards the left, you’ll see some dark boxes that stand out from the rest of the image. Evans is known to have “spotted” his images (to remove dust marks and such), and to have enhanced some window tracery, but these boxes are pretty dramatic.

The photograph appears to be adhered to the card stock at the corners, rather than a full contact mount, which has caused the edges to curl up a bit. It’s hard to see in the photo above, but the evidence is in a slight shadow underneath the bottom edge. In it’s current frame, the curled edges are touching the glass — this is something they’ll be fixing in the conservation process, probably by inserting shims into the frame to increase the distance between the glass and the photo.

So there it is.

I’ll post more news as it comes.

(on to Part 3!)

My grandfather, Paul, was an architect, painter, and calligrapher. As a kid I loved spending time in his studio, immersed in his collection of books and drawings. Paul was a wonderful man with a great sense of humor, but he passed away about ten years ago. In 2000, we travelled to Philadelphia for his memorial, and while we were in town we picked out keepsakes from his personal belongings. Amongst his papers and books was an old photo of a stone flight of stairs — it had been a wedding gift to Paul and my grandmother, Jayne. The photo reminded me of him: quiet, thoughtful, and strong.

It was also small enough to pack in a suitcase, so that’s just what I did.

The photograph was obviously quite old and a bit too fragile to keep in my apartment, so I left it with my mom. I smiled whenever I saw it on her wall, and although I was curious about it’s origins, I was 21 years old and quite a bit more curious about other things.

So, that was that — for a few years, anyway.

One afternoon in 2005 I was looking through the Phaidon Photo Book. It’s a fantastic reference for 500 of the most influential photographs, representing every era and genre, and each photo is accompanied by statements about the artist and their philosophies. Terrific stuff if you’re into such things, and I am.

I was about a third of the way through when my heart skipped a beat. Could it be? I bought the book and ran to my mother’s place.

Sure enough, there it was.

But what then? I was baffled. I called a couple of local photography galleries and didn’t get any helpful answers. I couldn’t afford to get it appraised, I didn’t want to sell it, and I had no idea what to do with it.

The photo stayed at my mom’s house, and the years went by. I got married. I fell into a career in software development. I moved away, and came back to Portland. I had a kid. I bought a house of my own.

Last Christmas my mom wrapped up the photo and gave it to me for safe keeping. I stuck it in my closet, terrified of exposing it to the sun or my rambunctious toddler.

Last week, a friend and I were at the Portland Art Museum. As we wandered through the galleries, he asked if I had talked with anyone at the Museum about the photo. I hadn’t. Why not? I don’t know.

So I sent an email to Julia, the curator of photography, who invited me to bring the photo in for examination.

The next morning I wrapped up the print and took it over. We chatted briefly, then went down into a well lit room in the bowels of the museum to examine the photograph. Julia and I were joined by the lead conservator, the registrar, and a couple other interested people.

I opened the box, and Julia said “… oh!”

It’s “A Sea of Steps,” Frederick Henry Evans most famous photograph. By happy coincidence, Julia has extensive experience with his prints from her work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and we spent an hour examining the piece and talking about it’s history.

First, it appears to be the real deal. The photograph is mounted on card stock that carries the imprint of the title in his handwriting, with his signature, his blind stamp, and hand drawn borders. The odd part is that the writing is just an imprint: there is no residual graphite from his pencil, and no surface damage from an eraser.

The photo is one of a couple different variations. Evans used a few different chemistries to create the images; the most famous use a platinum emulsion, and others use a silver gelatin or silver bromide emulsion. We’re fairly certain that this is a silver print of some sort, as it has developed a characteristic “shininess” over the last 100 years.

Interestingly, the photo has been retouched — after the print was made, someone applied pigments to darken parts of the image. This had me worried. Frederick Evans is famous for unadulterated “straight prints,” but this turns out to be more legend than fact: he retouched many of his images, including this one.

There are still questions … like when was the print made, and where did it come from? I expect we’ll find out in due time.

At the end of the meeting, everyone was a bit giddy. I have no intention of sticking it back in my closet, so I loaned it to them so that the conservator can examine the piece in detail, and Julia can do more research into the origin of the piece.

The funny part is that I’m still in the dark about what it’s worth. Julia can’t give me any estimates, because it’s a conflict of interest if the Museum wants to acquire the piece. She simply said “this is your Antiques Roadshow moment,” and referred me to a couple of appraisers.

Again I’m faced with the dilemma … what to do?

After a couple of brief discussions, it appears I have three options: to keep, to sell, or to donate.

Here’s what I’m wrestling with: although I have a very strong sentimental attachment to this piece, I can’t provide a proper environment to protect it in my home, and because of it’s significance, I think it should be available to the public.

So, what should I do? I’m still thinking about it, and I’d love to hear from you.

(More info and a photo, over at Part 2!)