La fotografia antica é la più bella delle collezioni
Next Auction . 29 MAY 2025
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Destination Moon
«When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik a little more than a half century ago, Americans were stunned: the Russians had beaten us to space. We had a choice to make: we could accept defeat – or we could accept the challenge. And as always, we chose to accept the challenge…» (President Barack Obama, National Academy of Sciences, 27 April 2009)
“Destination Moon”—the catalog for Senegallia’s forthcoming auction—was produced in collaboration with Victor Letemplier, an Erasmus student currently studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Urbino. The conquest of space continues to captivate the younger generation. This catalog features documents from the Soviet space program and earlier ventures involving aircraft and hot-air balloons. Additionally, it includes a collection of original documents from Raymond Loewy’s studio, showcasing pioneering designs for the first space toilets. The catalog also presents a series of striking photographs taken from the skylights of orbital stations, offering new extraterrestrial images that have enriched our human culture with their shapes and colors.
… The world was coming to an end. Pollution had invaded cities. Animal species had become extinct. After the others, the bees had disappeared, then the butterflies, desire was dead. Men were no longer having children.
A poet decided to describe the process, but his book made him sad. No sooner had he sketched out the finale than Jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grainville went into the canal near his home to drown. In those rainy days, weeks lasted ten days and the French Revolutionary calendar indicates that 12 pluviôse an XIII (1er février 1805) was the duodi of the second decadededicated to broccoli.
Someone found the manuscript and published it without much care. But an Englishman was surprised and decided to translate it. A young woman read the translation and drew inspiration from it to write her Frankenstein. This was Marie Shelley.
As a result, Charles Nodier leading French critic sought out the manuscript to prepare a better edition, and here is a rare copy in this catalog. All this happened more than 200 years ago. Melancholy has accompanied poets since the beginning of the world.
Jean-Baptiste, Grainville, explains that civilization has reached the end of history. All peoples have connected. All knowledge has been changed. Images circulate at the speed of light. Men have visited all territories – “J’ai fait le Tour du Monde” is the name of the vessel. Desire is dead.
Grainville writes The Last Man, inspired by Genesis, and imagines the end of time consistent with the beginning.
140 years ago, Bertillon achieved his greatest success by demonstrating that photography could be a formidable tool for law enforcement to prevent crimes and misdemeanors, as it led to the arrest of Ravachol, the most famous of French anarchists.
Ravachol is smiling in this astonishing photo taken by Bertillon at the Paris police headquarters. He is not hostile as seen in some classic images from the history of photography where criminals appear to struggle like demons to prevent their souls or appearances from being stolen.
Since then, millions, tens of millions of human beings have been photographed by law enforcement agencies, sometimes simply as a preventive measure like the anarchists of the past, or more often for having committed minor offenses or serious crimes, as President Donald Trump recently seems to have done. Regardless of the circumstances, these police photographs, these anthropometric portraits, contribute to the fame and immortality of these men and women, sometimes anonymously, sometimes accompanied by true written or filmed sagas for having participated in certain famous chapters of the history of crime.
This third monthly online auction, prepared by Serge Plantureux and Lucas Vanelstraete, is organized in collaboration with the logistics of the Drouot.com group. You can also join us for the closing of the auction on Saturday, September 23, 3:00 pm at ATELIER41, or submit your orders to our team at
consigned@plantureux.it
To bid on Drouot.com, access here
Il mese di agosto è propizio per esplorare la rappresentazione delle spiagge dalla nascita della fotografia. In realtà, le spiagge erano raramente frequentate prima della metà del XIX secolo, e le attività balneari divennero comuni e democratiche solo tra le due guerre mondiali: durante gli anni ’20 e ’30, l’accesso alle spiagge trasse particolare vantaggio dalla concorrenza tra le diverse forme di governo delle potenze in campo.
Tuttavia, le spiagge deserte in attesa dei futuri turisti ci permettono di richiamare il glorioso passato letterario dei primi viaggiatori.
La stampa numero 1, realizzata in albumina ad esempio, ci offre uno sguardo sulla imponente sagoma di Alexandre Dumas che la nostra immaginazione colloca quella mattina sulla spiaggia di Chiaia a Napoli. L’autore del Conte di Montecristo potrebbe trovarsi lì, in seguito all’invito che gli aveva rivolto Garibaldi per godere di uno dei più bei palazzi della città partenopea, nominandolo direttore del nuovo giornale…
CATALOGO PDF: AGOSTO-LA-SPIAGGIA
We encourage you to build your own personal museum and prepare for future exhibitions using the most beautiful collection of all: vintage photography.
Following the success of the acclaimed Louvre exhibition, “Les Choses” (The Things), curated by Laurence Bertrand Dorléac, we have decided to organize a sale featuring a hundred photographs of objects, which we have named “Le Cose” (The Things in Italian).
The Louvre exhibition, “Les Choses,” offered a fresh perspective on a genre that was long considered minor: still life. The representation of things, with evidence dating back to prehistoric times, allowed for a remarkable selection from the collections of the greatest museums, ranging from prehistoric axes carefully gathered when possible, to Duchamp’s reconstituted ready-mades, and the works of Chardin and Manet.
However, you can no longer collect prehistoric axes or subscribe to the numbered editions organized by Marcel Duchamp himself. Most vintage photographs, which take up little space, are still available for acquisition.
The “Le Cose” catalog presents vintage photographic prints at highly accessible prices, with bidding starting at $30.
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