About us

The study of early photography is a young discipline today but was a mere infant when we began as complete novices. Ken's background was in science, achieving a B.A. in Chemistry from Princeton University before he moved to the UK in 1970, to study for a Ph.D. in Biophysics at King's College, London. Jenny worked there as a research assistant in biochemistry.

Ken initially depended on his parents for financial support at a time when grants were rare for foreign students. His Dad, an amateur photographer and budding dealer in antique photographica, suggested Ken spend some of his spare time looking in the London markets for old cameras and photographs, the sale of which could substitute for a missing stipend. Before boarding a plane for London, Ken was handed a copy of the seminal Strober photographic auction catalogue held at Sotheby's, New York in 1970 and told to look for photographs by 'some guy named Talbot'.

Ken did so, quickly becoming besotted with the hunt for 19th-century photographs, much to the detriment of his scientific studies - a possible three-year doctoral degree turned into one of six! Fortuitously, Ken's arrival in London in 1970 was ideally timed for the inaugural auction at Sotheby's newly-opened photography department in 1971. These early sales brought forth abundant photographic treasures, sometimes displayed in overflowing tea chests - the contents often a mystery to all. What a privilege it was to very gradually turn ignorance into knowledge after looking at hundreds of thousands of photographs at a time when few books had been written on the subject.

On completion of his thesis, a proposed invitation to both Ken & Jenny to work at the Pasteur Institute in Paris hit some unacceptable hurdles. It was decided to take a little time off to reside in the English countryside, attempt to make a temporary living from early photography and think about our future. Dozens of international photography fairs later and with thousands of very old and new reference books lining our bookshelves, this 'gap year' continues more than 50 years later, the passion for early photography not yet extinguished.

The intervening time has brought a successful working partnership as well as the opportunity to meet fellow enthusiasts from around the world. A resurgence of Ken's original scientific curiosity has now become re-directed towards the history of photography; consequently, for very many years, he has been increasingly occupied in archives and libraries. The results have been a series of publications, including Odalisques and Arabesques: Orientalist Photography, 1839-1925, that was shortlisted for the 2008 Kraszna-Krausz award for the best photography book published during the previous two years.

Ken has spoken on early photography at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, Royal Asiatic Society in London, Department of Art History at Cambridge University, Daguerreotype Symposium in Bry-sur-Marne, France, J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, Tate Gallery in London, Daguerreian Society in New York, Museu de l'Empordà in Figueres, Spain, Snite Museum at the University of Notre Dame, the University of Ca' Foscari in Venice and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

In 2006, the Jacobsons made a discovery that transformed their world. Certainly the greatest find of their lives and also one of the most dramatic in the history of the field, a cursorily described item at a country auction transpired to consist of 188 daguerreotype views of Italy, Switzerland and France. They were commissioned or taken by John Ruskin, the greatest art critic of the 19th century. The collection contained the largest group of daguerreotypes of Venice in the world and the first photograph of the Matterhorn. In 2015, after many years of a careful conservation programme and thorough research, Ken & Jenny co-authored Carrying Off The Palaces. John Ruskin's Lost Daguerreotypes. John Ruskin's Lost Daguerreotypes. They were fortunate to receive both the Apollo Magazine award for the best art book of the year and also the first ever Ruskin Society award for best book.

Over the years, the salerooms once bursting with photographs, including those with the aforementioned tea chests, have given way to a paucity of such auctions held at all. There has been a similar diminution of museum and commercial exhibitions featuring early photography. Collectors and institutions must often depend on specialist dealers like ourselves for making acquisitions. Collectors should not despair, however, as there are always categories of aesthetically pleasing photographs that are overlooked. There are few other fields where so many astonishing works of art may be discovered outside the mainstream narrative of art history.

The Jacobson's own aesthetic preference is for imagery taken with a minimum of artistic self-consciousness. The photography of Asia, the Middle East, social documentation and artist's studies are particular interests as are daguerreotypes.

We are always happy to assist in queries concerning 19th-century photographs, whether it is ascertaining if we have certain works in our large stock or for historical information from our extensive library.