Canada RP Quebec City Wm. Notman & Son photo, Montreal

Pricing & History

Sold for
Start Free Trial or Sign In to see what it's worth.
Sold Date
Source eBay

Up for auction we have a rare find. It is an original albumen photograph by William Notman & Son from Montreal Canada. The photo is 9" wide by 7" highT is a small pinhole in the upper left hand side of the photo that would not be noticible were the phototo be matted and framed. T is some wrinkling w the photo was once glued on a low quality mat, however the photo is in very good condition, very crisp and clear. The photo is numbered and titled "Quebec From Levis.William Notman (8 March 1826 Â- 25 November 1891) was a Canadian photographer and businessman. Notman was born in Paisley , Scotland in 1826, the same year in which photography was born in France . William Notman moved to Montreal in 1856. An amateur photographer, he quickly established a flourishing professional photography studio on Bleury Street . His first important commission was the documentation of the construction of the Victoria Bridge across the St. Lawrence River . The Bridge opened with great fanfare in 1860, attended by the Prince of Wales and Notman's camera. The gift to the Prince of a Maple Box containing Notman's photographs of the construction of the bridge and scenes of Canada East and Canada West so pleased Queen Victoria that, according to family tradition, she named him "Photographer to the Queen." Notman's reputation and business grew over the next three decades, the first Canadian photographer with an international reputation. He established branches throughout Canada and the United States , including seasonal branches at Yale and Harvard universities, to cater to the student trade. Notman was also an active member of the Montreal artistic community, opening his studio for exhibitions by local painters; the studio also provided training for aspiring photographers and painters. Notman was highly regarded by his colleagues for his innovative photography, and held patents for some of the techniques he developed to recreate winter within the studio walls. He won medals at exhibitions in Montreal , London , Paris , and Australia .Photography during the mid 19th century was not the simple process it later became. The typical tourist generally did not carry a camera and much of the Notman studio's images were taken with the tourist's needs in mind. Visitors would look through Notman's Picture Books and chose views, to buy individually mounted or perhaps made up into an album, and have a portrait taken as well. Street scenes in the burgeoning cities of Canada, the magnificence of modern transportation by rail and steam, expansive landscapes and the natural wonders, all were in demand either as 8" x 10" prints, or in the popular stereographic form, and were duly recorded by the many staff photographers working for the Notman studio. William Notman was a regular contributor to the photographic journal Philadelphia Photographer and in partnership with its editor, Edward Wilson, formed the Centennial Photographic Company for the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia , held in honour of the 100th anniversary of the United States of America in 1876. He won the only gold medal to be awarded by the British judges and the portrait identification card required for entrance to the grounds was the ancestor of today's various photo-ID cards. When William Notman died in November 1891, quite suddenly after a short bout of pneumonia, management of the studio Wm Notman & Son was left to his son William McFarlane Notman, an experienced photographer in his own right, who with his brothers, had accompanied the itinerant settlement known as "End of Track" for the Canadian Pacific Railway and documented the construction of the railway towards the west. Quebec City is one of the oldest European settlements in North America . While many of the major cities in Mexico date from the sixteenth century, among cities in the U.S. and Canada only St. John's , Newfoundland and Labrador, Port Royal , Nova Scotia , St. Augustine , Florida , Santa Fe , New Mexico , and Tadoussac , Quebec were cre... read more

Items in the Price Guide are obtained exclusively from licensors and partners solely for our members’ research needs.

Flag item for content or copyright

If this item contains incorrect or inappropriate information please contact us here to flag it for review.

If you are the originator/copyright holder of this photo/item and would prefer it be excluded from our community, contact us here for removal.