Old Betz
Salt print, c. 1859
10/10; 182 x 134 mm, mounted on archival paper
$32,500.
A portrait of a Native-American Sioux woman 'said to be' 120 years old. According to some accounts she heroically aided white captives during the Dakota war of 1862. This photograph was later copied and published by Whitney as a reduced-size carte de visite. The Minnesota Historical Society calls Whitney the state's "premier pioneer photographer". This is the only original contact print of this image we know to exist. The provenance is a British collector of native American photographs and costumes who lived among native Americans and wrote about them in the 19th century.