c1953

Concertina photograph album c1953 -1957 26 photographs, 25 tipped in. 125 x169mm portrait. Orange cloth. Missing original fastener. Records a photo shoot with designer and model in a garden. Photographs by K[arl] L[udwig] Haenchen, [ b 1909 d 2003 ]. Signed by the designer Hans Gehringer. In the period from 1930 until the second world war he was considered one of the most important German Fashion Photographers. After the war he increasingly focused on photographing celebrities and diversified his career into film and composition of music. This album represents the transition in his work. The photographs record the fashion designer in his garden with his wife and another woman posing in various elegant dresses for which he became renowned as part of the post war German fashion scene. The loose image with the stamp of K L Haenchen dated 1-9-53 – dedication signed by Hans Gehringer 5-9-1957.

Portsmouth no date c 1940 -1948

Twenty-six black and white photographs pasted into a period album + three additional photographs of the same subjects loosely inserted. Landscape shaped album with cloth covered boards. Embossed circle on upper boards. Boards worn and dusty and rear inner hinge detached. Mostly images are of St Cutbert and St Aidan Church, Portsmouth. 16 black and white photographs of the Church. Three show the interior before damage occurred and 13 afterwards. A further four photographs show the local community; one of which is a post war street party. There are additionally five small photographs of the church hall which operated as a church during the war. One shows a bombed-out house. Photograph sizes vary from 260x210mm to small scale images 55 x 85mm [ of the hall] Several photographs have the embossed stamp of "Portsmouth and Sunderland Newspapers Ltd.". Two images show memorials of flowers set up in the damaged church and further one is a miniature cenotaph. These are particularly interesting for their documentary value of commemorating the impact of war damage. Fascinating album. Photographs all very good but some poorly pasted into the album. No captions. Album itself, worn but a great record of one building and its associated community. This church was damaged twice. The first damage to the church buildings occurred on November 10th 1940, when a high explosive bomb fell, tore a hole in the North side of the nave. On April 17th 1941, a landmine in Hayling Avenue destroyed the East end of the church, severely damaging the rest of the building and completely flattening the Parish Hall (the original Mission Church). The church was initially partially restored and then further work was undertaken in 1957. In the early 2000s the church was partially converted to house several community facilities including a doctor's surgery. All these changes are documented at https://www.stcuthbertandstaidan.org.uk/about/a-brief-history-of-st-cuthberts-church/ [ accessed 22 March 2023]

Cologne 1894

9 sepia photographs on thin collodian paper, each measuring 380x305mm. Mounted on dark card mounts with photographer's details on verso. Mounts sl. bumped at corners. Images generally vg, though a little faded. Repairs made to the glass plate negatives have resulted in small dark blemishes on the photographs. Contained within dark green morocco folio, worn at edges, with ribbon ties and paste down label. A collection of remarkably early photographs of a townhouse in Cologne, belonging to Adolf Meyer Lowenthal and his wife. The four large images (each has multiple copies) depict a suite of interconnected rooms, including a bedroom and sitting/reception rooms. The Lowenthals were the parents of Frida (1847-1923), who married the chemist and industrialist and philanthropist Ludwig Mond in 1866 and moved to England shortly after. He set up Brunner, Mond & Co. with John Tomlinson Brunner. (Later became ICI). Frida became prominent in literary and artistic circles, and, with her husband, built a large collection of artworks and literary memorabilia. These photographs show a house full of portraits and artistic objects, no doubt contributing to her passions. These photographs, later in the possession of her son, Robert Mond, may have reminded her of their origins. They are lovely, high quality images, taken by the prolific and well known photographer Anselm Schmitz (1839-1903), most famous for his work on Cologne Cathedral and recording the city walls before they were demolished in 1883.