PBA Galleries

Gelatin silver photograph, signed in ink by Orville and Wilber Wright in lower left corner. 4x6¼.

Excellent signed photograph of an early Wright aircraft above a field in Paris, flying over bullock cards laden with hay. Accompanied by a photo-copy of a receipt from Walter R. Benjamin Autographs, from 1966, on which Mary Benjamin describes by the item as "Orville & Wilbeur Wright Sigs. on original photo of plane in France, 1908(?)," though other evidence suggest the date to be more likely early 1909. The price on the receipt is $250. Also present is a photo-copy of a typed slip describing how the photograph came to be taken and signed: "During the time the Wright bros. were in France to try to sell their plane to the Fr. Govt., my father, Prof. Edwin B. Davis of Rutgers University, was studying in Paris, but, the wind being unfavorable, the plane did not go up. Outside the airfield he was waiting for a trolley car and was joined by a man who turned out to be one of the Wright brothers. He took such a fancy to my father that he invited him to be present on the field at the next trial. Consequently my father found himself one of three persons on the field, the two others being Miss Wright and the brother who was not flying the plane. No one else was allowed on the field. The picture was given to my father as a souvenir of the occasion."