Lot 37: CLARK, ALVAN. 1804-1887.

A view of the Moon, perhaps from Cincinnati Observatory, June, 1878, albumen print mounted, 8½ x 6½ inches (215 x 165 mm), captioned below in ink, framed.

The only photograph known to have been taken by Clark through a telescope. The caption reads: "Taken by Alvan Clark with a telescope of 11 inches aperture in the month of June 1878." Famous for crafting lenses for some of the largest refracting telescopes of the 19th and early 20th centuries, Clark and his sons were prolific in their output. Amongst their best-known telescopes are the 24-inch at Lowell Observatory, the 36-inch at Lick Observatory, and the 40-inch at Yerkes.
Clark provided an 11-inch to Cincinnati Observatory in 1876; another 11-inch lens was intended for a telescope in Lisbon, Portugal, but was delivered in 1880 to Henry Draper.