Because of the damage, I would never have purchased this photo if it had not been part of a collection. This nice 19th century portrait was pulled out of a photo album. The glue and bits of black paper on the back is a dead give away. I've been known to complain about dealers breaking up collections and destroying the context of the photos. What might be a nice image, becomes an historically interesting photo when left with the other pictures in the collection. And, of course, a lot of photos get damaged when the dealer is clumsy when removing photos from albums. Lille could be a name, or it could refer to the city in France. The initials that follow the name are a mystery.
I'm with you. It always breaks my heart a little when I find photos with the traces of an album page on the back. All the details that might have put it in context are gone.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you also, but as we know single photos and postcards can often bring more money. I found that I had done a bit of the same thing - unwittingly. I had a number of postcard albums. I left the nice old ones intact, but I removed the ones from the not-so-nice albums. I then took them and sorted them to join the rest of my collection - various holidays, hotels etc. But when I really started reading the backs of the cards, I was sorry I had done it. I found that the family histories were really a more appropriate grouping than the categories. Now, I'm trying to re-sort them, which is much harder.
ReplyDeleteIt can be scanned and restored.
ReplyDelete