LONDON.- The online sales at the hub of auctioneers 25 Blythe Road, founded in 2007 by antique arms, armour and militaria specialist Thomas Del Mar, continues to grow this autumn with the introduction of photographs specialist, Arnaud Delas. Delas is an established dealer in the world of photographs, with particular interest in 19th and 20th century themes of travel, exploration, science, portraiture and nudes. He founded Galerie Hypnos in central Paris in 1996 which he ran for 9 years, and exhibited at the well-known Paris Photo, Europe’s most prestigious photograph fair, for many years. Delas has also participated in other fairs such as Photo San Francisco, Photo LA, Photo London and the London Photo Fair of which is he now a co-owner.

Now resident in the UK, Delas believes that the collectables market in photographs, such as 19th century photographic call cards and stereographic images have a lot of scope online, not least with the well-publicised interest of Dr Brian May in Victorian Stereophotography, examples of which will be alongside twelve paintings at Tate Britain this October. However he would like to see more well-known 19th and 20th century photographers to be considered artists and their work fine art, in a similar category as painters and their pictures.

Paris was regarded as the cradle of photography during the first half of the 20th century, nurturing many great photographers such as Eugene Atget, Brassai and Henry Cartier Bresson and there are many more talented French photographers from that period who are well known in France yet still to find fame over the channel such as Albert Rudomine, Roger Parry and Pierre Molinier, that Delas also hopes to promote more via the auctions.

Delas has made significant discoveries in his career, including a previously unknown image of Arthur Rimbaud taken at Sheikh Othman circa 1883 and recently catalogued the important photographic collection (for a French auction house for whom he is a consultant) of paper negatives by Felix Teynard from his expedition to Egypt 1851 – 1852, a single image from this group achieved 155,000 Euros.

The first online only auction, entitled Arnaud Delas: Photographs, will take place on the 25th November 2014