Only Known Photographs of Ada Lovelace to Auction: Estimate £120,000
One of Antoine Claudet's daguerreotypes of Ada Lovelace
The only known photographs of mathematician and early computer programmer Ada Lovelace will go under the hammer next week at Bonhams' Fine Books, Maps & Manuscripts online sale.
The lot includes two daguerreotype portraits by Antoine Claudet (1797-1867) - a former pupil of Louis Daguerre - in oval gold-coloured mounts, and original velvet-lined maroon morocco cases with gilt lettered credit of Claudet, and an anonymous photo of Henry Wyndham Phillips painting of Lovelace towards the end of her life. The estimate is £80,000 - £12,000.
Claudet's images of Lovelace (1815-1852), who was interested in the emergence of photography and its possible impact on society, were taken aorund 1843 when she published her pioneering paper on Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine in which she described on what is often regarded as the the first computer programme, and discussed the difference between artificial intelligence and the human mind. Both images have descended through the Lovelace family.
The final daguerreotype ireproduces a painting by Henry Wyndham Phillips (1820-1868) of Lovelace who sat for Henry Phillips in August 1852 when her health had seriously worsened. All three images have previously appeared in exhibitions over the last decade at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Other highlights in the sale include:
- an original drawing by Hablot 'Phiz' Browne for The Ghostly Passengers in the Ghost of a Mail, plate 37 in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club by Charles Dickens inscribed with his signature of approval by the author (estimate: £7,000 - £10,000)
- two pages of an autograph letter from Jane Austen to her niece Caroline Austen, 1816, with cut signature attached (estimate: £20,000 - £30,000
- a first edition, first impression in first issue dust jacket of The Hobbit or There and Back Again by J. R. R. Tolkien owned by pioneering missionary Georgina Gollock (estimate: £25,000 - £35,000)
- a complete set of Ian Fleming's 14 James Bond novels, all first editions, first impressions (estimate: £25,000 - £35,000)
- the draft manuscript speech given by King George V announcing the foundation of New Delhi at the 1911 durbar (estimate £15,000 - £25,000)
The sale runs June 9 until June 19.
