Tyler, William B.

[Handsome Photograph Album of California Scenes, Including Images of San Francisco's Chinatown]

San Francisco: 1889. Twenty-seven original photographs, approximately 3.5 x 5.75 inches. Small quarto album. Contemporary pebbled cloth, boards blind stamped. Light wear to spine, boards with minor scuffing, corners bumped. Two album leaves loose, several more beginning to separate at gutter. Photos mounted directly to leaves, with contemporary manuscript captions. Occasional minor soiling and wear to prints, including one short, closed tear and one tear at corner mounting; album leaves evenly tanned. About very good. Item #2895

A well composed album of twenty-seven original images of San Francisco by W.B. Tyler, the late 19th-century California photographer. The photographs present here include a selection of that highlight Tyler's areas of focus, the San Francisco missions and Chinatown. The album contains eight images of Chinatown and its environs, including a short series of the Bun Sun Low Restaurant at 629 Jackson Street, as well as four images of the Mission Dolores and its surroundings. Other small series include several images of the Golden Gate and three photos of Yosemite. Also included are street scenes and hilltop views of San Francisco, and images of California architecture such as the Central Pacific Ferry Terminal and the Golden Gate Park Conservatory. A complete list of images as captioned is as follows:

1) The Ferry Landing S.F.
2) The Mission Dolores Church.
3) Churchyard. Mission Dolores.
4) Interior of the Church [at Mission Dolores].
5) Adobe. Mission Dolores.
6) Clay St. From Van Ness Ave.
7) View from Telegraph Hill.
8) Big Tree. Yosemite (28 Feet in Diameter).
9) Looking Down California St.
10) The Bank of California.
11) "Barbary Coast." A Bit of Old San Francisco.
12) In Chinatown. San Francisco.
13) Chinese Children.
14) A Chinese Restaurant.
15) A Chinese Restaurant.
16) Interior of the Bun Sun Low Restaurant.
17) Interior of the Bun Sun Low Restaurant.
18) The Bun Sun Low Restaurant [Interior].
19) The Bun Sun Low Restaurant [Exterior].
20) The Conservatory. Golden Gate Park.
21) Entrance to the Golden Gate.
22) The Pacific. Entrance to the Golden Gate.
23) The Seal Rocks.
24) The Wake of the Oakland Ferry Boat.
25) Ship's Boat.
26) Bridal Veil Fall. Yosemite.
27) Bridal Veil Fall and Face of Pohonto [Pohono?].

This album was present by a T. McSweeny to Thomas Bours in February 1889; an auction catalog of Tyler's inventory and equipment two years later seem to signal the end of his career in photography. Tyler published a book of Chinatown photographs in 1889 entitled The Festival of the Great Dragon, which contained not his own work but images by Samuel Cheney Partridge, as well as a photobook of the California missions. His own images are much harder to come by and sparsely held institutionally, nor is he listed in Mautz's guide to Western photographers. Overall, a very appealing album of San Francisco images from the late 1880s, by one of its lesser known photographers.

Price: $4,750.00