PHOTOGRAPHS HELD BY THE ALBERTINA SINCE THE 1850s

 

Photographs formed an integral constituent part of the special thematic collections of the house, and were supplying, in succession to the single-sheet woodcuts and reproduction engravings, the etched vedute or lithographed portraits, the most topical visual information from around the monarchy.

 

Gustav Jägermayer’s monumental series about the Eastern Alps featuring at its centre the Grossglockner mountain (1863) found its way into the archive, as did, no less so, the voluminous album compiled by the Dutch photographer, Schoon, on the Lemberg-Czernowitz railways (from around 1868).

Even more representative in its format and execution is the documentation of the old Vienna city walls and their demolition during the years 1858 to 1860, as provided by the Austrian Imperial and Royal Court and State Printing House. Quite by contrast to this, the firm of R. Lechner (Wilh. Müller), acting somewhat as the first Vienna photo agency, supplied, on a weekly basis, small photographs of all topical events, such as inaugural celebrations, jubilees and catastrophes.

 

Picture Gallery

 

Paul Pretsch
Interior of the Gloriette, 1850

Anonymous
Abu Simbel, Entrance to the Great Temple, Only Partially Freed from Sand, 1855

Gustav Jägermayer

Welitz Glacier, East by North from the Foot of the Umbal Glacier, 1863

Schoon
Lemberg-Czernowicz Railroad: Detail of the Schiffkornian Bridge Construction Across the Pruth River, around 1868

 

R. Lechner (Wilhelm Müller) Comp.
At the Freudenau horseraces, ca. 1900

Antios
Portrait of the Painter Egon Schiele, 1914