CIRCA 1858 PAIR OF ALBUMEN PHOTOGRAPHS: SIR CHARLES FOX, BUILDER OF THE CRYSTAL PALACE, AND HIS DAUGHTER MARY ISABEL

CIRCA 1858 PAIR OF ALBUMEN PHOTOGRAPHS: SIR CHARLES FOX, BUILDER OF THE CRYSTAL PALACE, AND HIS DAUGHTER MARY ISABEL

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$350.00

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Item Code: 2023-1377

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An exceptional two-piece lot of large mounted albumen photographs, each identified in period ink on the verso, with a direct presentation link between two notable industrial figures of the era — Sir Charles Fox, the English engineer who built the Crystal Palace, and James Tyler Ames (1810–1883) of the Ames Manufacturing Company, Chicopee, Massachusetts, the foremost Northern maker of presentation and regulation swords, edged weapons, and cast bronze ordnance supplied to the Union during the Civil War.

The first is a seated three-quarter-length studio portrait of a distinguished gentleman in frock coat, waistcoat, and bow cravat, holding a rolled document. The verso is inscribed "Sir Charles Fox. / Born March 11/1810." The birth date corresponds exactly to Sir Charles Fox (11 March 1810 – 11 June 1874), the celebrated English civil engineer and contractor whose firm, Fox, Henderson & Co., fabricated and erected the iron-and-glass Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition of 1851 — work for which Fox was knighted alongside Joseph Paxton and Sir William Cubitt. He afterward re-erected the structure at Sydenham and went on to a distinguished career in railway, station, and bridge engineering.

The second is a standing full-length portrait of a young girl in a tiered, off-the-shoulder dress posed beside a draped table — Fox's daughter. The verso is inscribed "Mary Isabel Fox. / Age 9 — / Taken Feb 14/[5]8," with a separate notation below: "Mr. J.T. Ames' Copy. / Presented by C. Fox. / March 15/[5]8." The presentation inscription establishes that Sir Charles Fox himself gave this copy of his daughter's portrait to James T. Ames — a documented personal connection between the builder of the Crystal Palace and America's premier Civil War sword maker. A contemporary ink caption runs along the top edge of the image, now partly trimmed.

James T. Ames took sole control of the Ames Manufacturing Company upon his brother Nathan's death in 1847 and directed it through its peak as a Union arms contractor. Ames swords, presentation blades, and cast cannon are cornerstones of Civil War edged-weapon collecting, and material with a direct Ames association is highly desirable. An appealing trans-Atlantic grouping uniting a landmark figure in the history of engineering with the personal effects of the foremost Northern arms maker of the Civil War.

Both are albumen prints (circa 1858) on heavy card mounts, each measuring approximately 6.5 x 8.25 in.

Fox portrait good, with strong tonal range; bumped and chipped corners, minor edge wear, light surface handling; verso clean apart from the inscription. Child's portrait fair to good; chipping and loss to the upper-left corner with an associated short edge crack, an adhesive remnant at top edge, scattered surface soiling, and the trimmed top caption noted above; verso with a light diagonal crease at lower right.   [ss][ph:L]

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