Michael Lehr Antiques
Live Auction

2026 European Photography Auction

Wed, Oct 28, 2026 01:00PM EDT
  2026-10-28 13:00:00 2026-10-28 13:00:00 America/New_York Michael Lehr Michael Lehr : 2026 European Photography Auction https://auction.michaellehrantiques.com/auctions/michael-lehr-antiques/2026-european-photography-auction-24401
Our October auction focuses on historic European photography, we are offering a curated collection of fine and erotic daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, CDV, cabinet cards, stereoviews, and a range of curious and uncommon nineteenth-century European vernacular material. At the center of the sale is a collection of images from the Paris Commune of 1871 and the surrounding “année terrible,” the year of war, siege, insurrection, and reprisal that reshaped France. The focus is on the people who drove those events and lived through their aftermath, and on the city that bore the damage.
Michael Lehr Antiques info@michaellehrantiques.com
Lot 141

Ambrotypes, Quarter Plate, Three Women Reading a Letter, Double

Estimate: $200 - $300
Starting Bid
$10

Bid Increments

Price Bid Increment
$0 $5
$100 $10
$200 $25
$500 $50
$1,000 $100
$2,000 $250
$5,000 $500
$10,000 $1,000
$20,000 $2,000
$50,000 $5,000
A rare double-sided quarter-plate ambrotype group portrait presenting three unidentified women gathered around a letter, each image offering a subtly distinct composition of the same scene. Both plates are housed in a single thermoplastic case, with ornately tooled gilt mats framing each image within an oval opening, and the case exterior embossed in the well-known "Cupid and the Wounded Stag" design (Krainik 36), associated with Littlefield, Parsons and Company, active from approximately 1858 to 1866.

Each of the three women wears a center-parted, smoothed coiffure characteristic of the 1850s, and each is dressed in a dark bodice fitted with a wide lace collar pinned at the throat with a brooch. The central figure in each image bows her head over a small folded letter held in her hands, while her companions turn toward or away from the camera with differing expressions. In one plate the left-hand figure wears a vertically striped bodice in place of plain dark fabric, and applied color tinting is visible in the cheeks of the subjects, adding warmth to the otherwise monochrome surfaces.

The two ambrotypes represent a remarkable document of a single sitting reworked or continued across two exposures, with meaningful differences in pose, gaze, and dress making them complementary rather than duplicate records. The case itself, with its deeply molded front panel depicting a winged putto astride a recumbent stag amid acanthus scrollwork, birds, and floral motifs, is among the more elaborate designs produced during the height of the American thermoplastic case industry.

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We ship for free on combined lot values of $500 or higher in the United States. We will be traveling to Paris November 8-14th and can deliver any of our items at Paris Photo or the show on Saturday.