COLLECTOR: Photographs from a single collection, including rare 19th and early 20th century images that chart the development of the craft in France, will feature at a major auction next week, writes Joe Armstrong

The largest ever sale of photographs from a single collection takes place in Paris next week. It includes the earliest recorded image created by photographic means.

The Jammes Collection auction conducted by Sotheby's next Thursday and Friday, March 21st and 22nd, is divided into two illustrated catalogues.

The first 225-page catalogue comprises rare 19th and early 20th century photographs, which focus on the development of photography in France.

The 250-page second catalogue is devoted to the archive of a pre-eminent early photographer Charles Nègre (1820-1880).

This is the second sale for works from the Jammes Collection. The first was planned as the inaugural auction for Sotheby's France in 1999.

However, due to delays in opening up the French auction market, the sale from the collection took place in London.

Sotheby's photographic specialist Philippe Garner said that the works to be sold provided "fascinating insights into the history of photography" and show "photography as a medium of artistic expression capable of generating works of considerable subtlety and sensitivity".

Marie-Thérése and André Jammes gained an international reputation as enlightened collectors following the first dispersal of works in 1999, regarded as a landmark event in the development of the market for historic photographs.

One lot in the sale "obliges us to re-write the story of the birth of photography", according to the auction house. André Jammes acquired a seemingly unassuming reproduction of a 17th century Dutch print, with a series of autographed manuscript letters by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce and his son Isidore. Niépce discovered the first viable photographic process. His earliest images are dated 1826-1827.

The Niépce correspondence that accompanied the print gave a step-by-step account of how Niépce made his discovery. The print is the only surviving testament to Niépce's achievement, in the summer of 1825, of using light alone to make a plate from which an image could be printed. The image is estimated at €500,000 to €750,000.

An album of 67 photographs by Charles Marville of a central area of old Paris before its destruction as part of the rebuilding projects of Haussmann is estimated at €375,000 to €525,000.

In a similar price league, an album of artist's studies, including large format nudes and close-ups of plants, from the sculptor Simart is expected to fetch between €300,000 and €375,000.

A striking 1935 picture by Laure Albin-Guillot of two nude women dancing is estimated at €3,000 to €4,000.

Other highlights include a rare series of studies by Victor Regnault in and around the manufactory at Sèvres, with estimates between €3,000 and €75,000.

A series of studies in the Forest of Fontainebleau, and a seascape and a rare architectural study, all by Gustave Le Gray, range in estimate from €7,500 to €120,000. A fine print of a celebrated portrait of Gustave Doré is expected to fetch €37,500 to €52,500.

Architectural studies by Edouard Baldus and Bisson Frères and alpine views by Frères are estimated at between €12,000 and €45,000.

Studies of historic ruins in ancient Mexico are priced from €1,500 to €90,000, and a series of topographical and ethnographical studies in Madagascar by Desiré Charnay is estimated at €150,000 to €225,000.

A magnificent picture by Camille Silvy (1834-1910) from the series On the Study of Light 1859-1860, well described as a rare and magical twilight study, is estimated at €45,000 to €60,000.

Works by the impressionist painter Edgar Degas feature in the sale, such as an intimate indoor group study including the artist and are estimated at €75,000 to €100,000.

The second catalogue comprising the archive of photographer Charles Nègre includes "Le Stryge", circa 1853, estimated at €180,000 to €240,000.

Another great image is of three chimney-sweeps walking, circa 1851, estimated at €120,000 to €180,000.