Photocraph Collection

A collection of travel photographs from the late 19th and early 20th century is part of the library’s stock of the society.

The collection comprises about 400 albumin, collodion and silver gelatin prints and is made up of landscapes and architecture photographs, portraits and scenic motifs. The pictures come from Japan, China, India, Sri Lanka, Middle Asia, as well as Egypt, Morocco, Sudan, Sinai and Tunisia. In some cases thematic series are produced.

The Photographs are primarily photographs that were acquired by local photographer’s during the travels. These include the photographers W.W. Hooper, W.L.H. Skeen & Co, Scown & Co, A. Michon, V. Kozlovsky, I. Wedensky, D. Jermakov, O. Kazuma, K. Tamamura, Brüder Zangaki, J.P. Sebah, H. Arnoux oder G. Davison. The authorship of a scholar can only be assumed for Sinai, Egypt and a photograph from Colombo. Further photographs are part of the properties of M. Hartmann and August Fischer.

Mostly the photographs are mounted on plain, partly printed cardboard. Numerous recordings have already faded and yellowed, cardboards are brittled and damaged. Other prints, however, are still in very good condition. There are indications which given by ink-coated picture titles or the picture legends which are visible in prints.

In a first step, the photograph collection was inventoried on a picture disc. It was linked to the exhibition preparations on occasion of the 29th Deutschen Orientalistentag in Halle. All the available data were recorded, the image condition was characterized, the dimensions and the techniques were defined. Some titles have been added or corrected. A preliminary research, which was possible within the framework of the project, had already given an approximate dating for certain photographs, and several image authors could be determined. The objective is to obtain more information through expert knowledge. For this purpose and with a request for cooperation, we enclosed our conference folders the image disc at the 29th Deutschen Orientalistentag in 2004. In this way, we hope to share knowledge and continue our work on the photographs collection.

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