PBA Galleries

Stereoview card, approximately 3¼x6¾", printed title label mounted on reverse. Partial 2 cent revenue stamp.

In 1858 C. L. Weed was tasked by Robert Vance with photographing scenes in the gold region. In the spring of 1859 the debut of these images, ‘The American River Panorama’, at Vance’s Gallery created a celebrity in C. L. Weed. He was immediately hired By J. M. Hutchings to accompany him into Yosemite Valley for the purpose of recording the sights for publication in Hutchings California Magazine. The result would be twenty large plate negatives and forty stereo negatives. The stereo offered is # 13 from that series. After a successful exhibit in San Francisco the glass plate negatives were shipped to New York under contract with Anthony. None of the forty glass positives exhibited in San Francisco are known to still exist. Although he is only in the photo for scale, this view showing Hutchings at the base of a Giant Sequoia effectively holds the honor of being the first image of a tourist in Yosemite. Provenance: John Carpenter.