lot details

lot no
526

description
Florence Nightingale (1820-1910). A black and white photograph, showing Miss Nightingale sat upright in bed, taken by Lizzie Caswall Smith, and with a pencil note verso in the latter's hand 'Florence Nightingale / Taken just before she died / House nr Park Lane [London] / The only photograph I ever took / out of studio - I shall never forget / the experience', 16cm x 21.5cm, the image with a reproduced studio title to the lower left edge 'Miss Nightingale No.1'; together with the original photographic negative for this image, and another showing minor movement to Miss Nightingale's head and right hand, each 9cm x 9cm; also a manuscript letter from Miss Nightingale to Mr L. Caswall Smith, dated Feb. 14th 1901, on notepaper headed '10, South Street, / Park Lane. W.', the pencil message reading 'Dear Sir / In answer to your / letter received yesterday / Feb. 13, if Sir Edmund Verney / has no objection, as you / note, to your photographing / my picture by Sir William / Richmond, I do not know / that I can make any / objection - therefore the / permission is yours / yours faithfully / Florence Nightingale / Mr L. Caswall Smith', 20cm x 12.5cm, (4). Note: Lizzie Caswall Smith (1870-1958) specialized in celebrity and society studio portraits, many of which were used as postcards in the early years of the twentieth century. From 1907 until 1920 she ran the Gainsborough Studio at 309 Oxford Street, London, then moving to 90 Great Russell Street, where she worked until her retirement in 1930. Sir William Blake Richmond, RA (1842-1921) was a noted portrait painter whose oil painting of Florence Nightingale hangs in Claydon House, Buckinghamshire, the ancestral home of the Verneys. Miss Nightingale was a regular guest at Claydon following the marriage of her sister to Sir Henry Verney in 1858. Provenance: The family of Lizzie Caswall Smith, by direct descent.

guide price
£300-500
Sold for £5,500
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