Rare Photo of Uptown Manhattan Home, Circa 1840, For Auction

Daguerreotype of a country home along "a continuation of Broadway," taken by unknown photographer in October 1848 or earlier. Courtesy Sotheby's.

This daguerreotype by an unidentified photographer, likely taken in October 1848, can be yours for $70,000, give or take a few grand—at least, that's how much it's expected to go for when Sotheby's auctions it off on Monday. The image depicts a country estate somewhere around the equivalent of today's Upper West Side near Bloomingdale Road, 'a continuation of Broadway' which, after 60th Street, wound northwestward through farmland by the Hudson River.

According to Sotheby's, early daguerreotypes depicting parts of New York City are exceedingly rare, and of the few dating from the 1840s and 1850s, all but this one depict buildings in Lower Manhattan. (And only one of those is believed to predate this daguerreotype.) A note in the plate's original leather case reads:

This view, was taken at too great a distance, & from ground 60 or 70 feet lower than the building; rendering the lower Story of the House, & the front Portico entirely invisible. (the handsomest part of the House.) The main road, passes between the two Post & rail fences. (called, a continuation of Broadway 60 feet wide.) It requires a maganifying [sic] glass, to clearly distinguish the Evergreens, within the circular enclosure, taken the last of October, when nearly half of the leaves were off the trees.