T. E. Hecht, after Fardon, Houseworth, Shew et al., Album of 19th-Century California Views compiled and printed by the Photographer Treu Ergeben Hecht, c. 1890s-1900s

T. E. Hecht, after Fardon, Houseworth, Shew et al.

Album of 19th-Century California Views compiled and printed by the Photographer Treu Ergeben Hecht, c. 1890s-1900s

Photo album; Printing-out-paper, Albumen, and Silver prints (234)

Various sizes, 3 1/2 x 3 1/2 up to 8 x 6 inches
Many with manuscript titles and negative numbers recto; some pages with modern annotations.

Further images

A remarkable album containing over 230 photographs, San Francisco and many other California cities including Sacramento, Stockton, San Jose, Santa Cruz (as well as various California missions, the 1868 Hayward earthquake damage and the 1869 flight of the airship Avitor Hermes, Jr.).

Many of the images were originally published by Houseworth, others published or photographed by Eadweard Muybridge, G.R. Fardon, I.W. Taber, and other (mainly SF) photographers. The majority of the photographs were printed circa 1890 and Nearly all are beautifully printed and sharp, clearly originating for the most part, from the original negatives. Most of the prints are captioned and numbered in ink. These numbers correspond to the filing numbers used by the photographer/image seller Treu Ergeben Hecht, who was actively selling photographs of earlier images around the turn of the century.

Hecht, who was born 1875 into an already photographed world, recognized the niche opportunity for producing views of early San Francisco (a business which of course boomed after the city's 1906 disaster). He's listed in the 1890s as a photographic printer and assistant to photographers J. H. Peters, Theodore Marceau, and R. J. Waters & Co., and in 1896 as a photo printer living at 1506 Sacramento Street.

Early in his career he would have been acquiring/trading/borrowing negatives and prints from colleagues and photographers of the "previous generation". The present album is most-likely
an early archival compilation of images Hecht was working with. The prints are earlier than the more commercial Hecht silver prints that occasionally come to market, and the quality/tonality is far richer. These prints also don't possess any Hecht credits or captions in the negatives as the aforementioned later prints do. However, as the hand-annotated prints correspond consistently with Hecht's titling and numbering system, it's likely that Hecht would produce images from negatives he owned/borrowed, archive them, and later re-photograph them at which point he would add his captions and credit.

The views of 1860 -1890 San Francisco include the First and Second Cliff House; the Palace, Grand, Cosmopolitan, Occidental and Baldwin Hotels; Woodward’s Gardens; Portsmouth Square; Miner’s Shot Tower; views of Telegraph and Russian Hills; Express Building; Russ House; the Chinese quarter and the Chinese Mission House; Mission Dolores and Grace, Trinity, Starr King and St. Mary’s Churches and two Jewish synagogues and Jewish cemetery; Hunter’s Point dry-dock, Lincoln School House, Monumental Engine Company: Old San Francisco Mint and many waterfront views, among numerous other general views of the city from many locations.

Separate sections picture early Sacramento (many views taken from the top of an under-construction capitol building; downtown Stockton; San Jose and Santa Clara; Santa Cruz and many others from around the state.

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New York Book Fair 2024

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