Carleton Watkins

An incredibly rich albumen silver print mounted to a two-toned board with a cursive title underneath the image. There is some soiling near the bottom of the mount, not affecting the image. The three edges of the mount are gold-gilded, which suggests that this was excised from an album. The print surface is exceptionally smooth and clean for a 19th-century print (they often exhibit quite a lot of wrinkling / craquelure). In the top left corner there is what appears to be a bit of fiber that may have been deposited into the emulsion during the original coating process and is only visible in raking light. There is soft rippling overall to the mount.