Photographs of Paintings and Illustrations

Most of the prints are portraits taken by Peter Britt. After 1883, Emil Britt was also in the studio. Nearly half the portraits are unidentified. Peter Britt did take photographs outside the studio infrequently. His most well-known effort occurred in 1874 at Crater Lake. He created what is probably the only wet-process photo of Crater Lake. William Gladstone Steel used the photograph in his successful effort to have Crater Lake designated a National Park. This collection includes the Crater Lake print.

Emil Britt began making photos professionally in 1883 after training for a year in San Francisco. Emil carried the camera out on many picnic excursions in the earlier part of the twentieth century. The earliest prints come from the 1860s, with the most recent taken in 1939 or 1940. The technical work is quite good; however, the overall content is disappointing in that there is not more of the area around Southern Oregon. Most of the early Jacksonville scenes were photographed from the Britt residence. There are few photographs of Grants Pass, Medford, Ashland, Phoenix, or other towns and those that exist are from the twentieth century There are about 100 photographs of artworks and other illustrations that are of little value, but are included here because they are in the collection.