Lot 544
Gardner, Alexander. Photograph Signed, "Alexander Gardner 7 July 1865 Penitentiary, Washington" on the 7 5/8 x 9½ in. mount. The 6¾ x 8½ in photograph shows the adjusting of the ropes on Mrs. Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt, who had been tried and convicted of being John Wilkes Booth's co-conspirators in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. The photograph is age toned and three corners are clipped; a vertical crease runs through the left edge of the scaffold and a smaller, diagonal crease is in the left corner, both from affixing the photo to the mount. The photo is slightly faded in the corners only, the central image being clear, and the mount has some soiling. Although Gardner photographs of the hanging of the Booth co-conspirators exist, one of these signed by Gardner is exceedingly rare. This photograph was purchased in 1997 from Cowan's Historic Americana Auctions for $8,700.
Alexander Gardner (1821-82) was born in Scotland. He came to America in 1856 and soon went to work for famed photographer Matthew Brady. In 1858, Gardner was put in charge of Brady's Washington gallery. After the outbreak of the Civil War, Gardner was much in demand by soldiers who wanted to be photographed at the Brady Studio. When Brady decided to make a photographic record of the war, Gardner was one of the photographers he sent throughout the country. Granted the honorary rank of captain on the staff of General George McClellan in November 1861, Gardner photographed the battles of Antietam, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and the siege of Petersburg. The photographs he took of the execution of Surratt, Powell, Atzerodt and Herold rank among his most famous.
Estimated Value $10,000 - 12,500.
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