Michael Lehr Antiques
Live Auction

Fall Photographic History Auction, 2025

Sat, Sep 6, 2025 01:00PM EDT
  2025-09-06 13:00:00 2025-09-06 13:00:00 America/New_York Michael Lehr Michael Lehr : Fall Photographic History Auction, 2025 https://auction.michaellehrantiques.com/auctions/michael-lehr-antiques/fall-photographic-history-auction-2025-20189
We are pleased to announce our next auction, featuring approximately 200 individual lots drawn from a diverse and compelling range of 19th- and early 20th-century photography. This sale focuses on vernacular images, photographs created not as formal studio portraits or elite commissions, but as direct, unscripted records of lived experience. These are objects made by and for everyday people, preserving moments of intimacy, labor, travel, performance, identity, and loss.
Michael Lehr Antiques info@michaellehrantiques.com
Lot 284

Chief Rain in the Face on Horseback by D. F. Barry

Estimate: $600 - $800
Starting Bid
$300

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Iconic cabinet card portrait of Chief Rain in the Face, photographed on horseback by David Francis Barry in Bismarck, Dakota Territory. One of the most well-known Lakota leaders of the 19th century, Rain in the Face fought in Red Cloud’s War and later gained national notoriety for his role in the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Barry’s photograph captures the former warrior in later life, mounted on a painted horse and dressed in a long coat and hat, his commanding presence undiminished. The image likely dates to the early 1880s during Rain in the Face’s years of engagement with the U.S. government as a member of the Indian police force, a transitional period which Barry chronicled in multiple photographs. "Rain in the Face" is boldly printed on the mount, and Barry’s imprint appears vertically at right. Verso bears various notations including one that identifies him as “ex-Chief of the Sioux, now a member of the police force” and “Copyrighted by D. F. Barry.” A significant historical image by one of the foremost frontier photographers of the American West.

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