Charles Darwin Signature and Original Carte-de-Visite.

DARWIN, Charles.

Item Number: 95260

Rare Charles Darwin signature framed with an original carte-de-visite by Herbert Rose Barraud, London. Double matted and framed. The carte-de-visite measures 4 inches by 2.75 inches. The entire piece measures 16 inches by  23 inches. Taken by Barraud in 1881, the present carte-de-visite was likely the last photograph of Darwin, taken one year before his death in 1882. Rare and desirable. A handsome presentation.

Charles Darwin was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors and, in a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace, introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding. Darwin published his theory of evolution with compelling evidence in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, overcoming scientific rejection of earlier concepts of transmutation of species. By the 1870s, the scientific community and much of the general public had accepted evolution as a fact. However, many favored competing explanations and it was not until the emergence of the modern evolutionary synthesis from the 1930s to the 1950s that a broad consensus developed in which natural selection was the basic mechanism of evolution. Darwin's scientific discovery is the unifying theory of the life sciences, explaining the diversity of life.