A folio containing a series of 95 photographs by Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904) has sold for £75,000 ($91,987) at Lyon & Turnbull.
That’s almost double its £40,000 ($48,576) estimate.
Eadweard Muybridge carried out his groundbreaking photo experiments in the US
It consists of Muybridge’s pioneering photographic investigations into human and animal movement.
Its full title is: “Animal Locomotion. An Electro-Photographic Investigation of Consecutive Phases of Animal Movements 1872-1885”.
Muybridge carried out the project at the University of Pennsylvania, and borrowed the animals (including the elephants) from the local Philadelphia Zoo.
Muybridge’s experiments were crucial to the development of photography and the natural sciences.
Most famously his sequence showing a horse galloping (taken in 1878) proved that all four of its legs left the ground, a question that had been debated for years.
In his personal life, it’s fair to say Muybridge was something of an oddball. He changed his name from Edward Muggeridge, reasoning that Eadweard Muybridge was its probable anglo-saxon equivalent.
He also murdered his wife’s lover in 1872, successfully avoiding jail on the grounds of justifiable homicide.
The sale also included a remarkable collection of pieces from the collection of Oskar Schindler and his wife, Emilie.
It featured a compass they used while fleeing the Russians in 1945.
Despite helping around over 1,000 Jews to escape Europe, as members of the Nazi Party they were at risk of summary execution at the hands of the Red Army.
There was also a wristwatch, a medal and a notebook containing Spanish phrases (they eventually made it to Argentina in 1949).
The lot made £9,500 ($11,651).
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