Carlton Watkins, 1870's

Unsigned

Size: 16 x 20.5 inches

Recto: Number 33. The Sentinel, 3069 feet, Yosemite, Cal. (lower left corner)

Taber Photos San Francisco (lower right corner)

Print condition: good-very good, small stains, some fading, Dry mounted on linen backing (recent -last ten years).

May be a version of Number 43, Sentinel, circa 1861.

Distinguishing feature: Appears to have been taken from the middle of the Merced River where there was no bridge or island. Appears to be a closer view of "Sentinel, View from the Valley", Yosemite, circa 1872-78 in the Getty collection. Pg 50, In Focus: Carelton Watkins: "Watkins photographed this site along the Merced River repeatedly over a period of twenty years."Because it is a Taber print it may be from a period before the mid-1870's because Taber owned all plates created before 1875 but none after. In the mid-1870's Watkins Yosemite Art Gallery was foreclosed by John Jay Cook and most of his early negatives were lost to Isaiah West Taber, his chief competitor who began printing them as his own thereafter. (pg 58, In Focus: Carleton Watkins, Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1997).