Pioneers & Explorers

They went first, and mostly without an audience. Orville Wright twelve seconds above the sand at Kitty Hawk, the shutter pressed by a man from the lifesaving station who had never handled a camera before. Melli Beese, licence number 115, the first German woman to earn one. Antoine Poidebard leaning out of a biplane over the Syrian steppe to photograph Roman roads that could not be seen from the ground. Anna Atkins laying ferns on light-sensitive paper in the 1840s and producing the first book illustrated with photographs.

None of them knew it would work. That is the whole of what they share — not courage, which is awarded afterwards, but a willingness to be first and possibly wrong.

Each listing names the source, the holding institution and the rights status. Fine porcelain, 10 oz, dishwasher and microwave safe.

Selected by Dr. Walther Fuchs for the Tazzarte collection.