European Photo Album, 1880s, James Craig Annan, Oscar Kramer, J Stauda
European Photo Album, 1880s, James Craig Annan, Oscar Kramer, J Stauda.
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A very interesting album of photography from the 1880s. Bookplate to James Craig Annan of Glasgow. Annan (1864-1946) was a pioneer of Scottish photography and honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society.
He travelled to Vienna in 1883 to learn the process of photogravure from Karel Klic, its inventor. He then brought his skills back to Scotland and his family firm became the leaders in gravure photographic printing in Britain.
He also went on to have significant influence on American photography with his work exhibited and published there in the early 20th Century.
This sizeable album has a leather spine and cloth over boards. Somewhat soiled and worn cover. 33cm high x 44cm wide x 2.7cm deep.
Contents (sizes approximate):
Large Prints (one print per leaf):
Print of aerial view of Vienna (263mm x 195mm).
Photographer: J. Stauda, 1 x View of Vienna (265mm x 203mm).
Photographer: Oscar Kramer, 3 x Views of Vienna (265mm x 203mm).
Photographer: J. Stauda, 2 views of Vienna (265mm x 203mm).
Photographer: Oscar Kramer, 6 x Views of Vienna (265mm x 203mm).
Photographer: J. Stauda, 1 x View of Vienna (265mm x 203mm).
Photographer: Oscar Kramer, 3 x Views of Vienna (265mm x 203mm).
Photographer: J. Stauda, 1 x View of Vienna (265mm x 203mm).
Photographer: J. Stauda, 1 x View of Vienna (265mm x 203mm).
The following images have no listed attributions, but the whole album is annotated in the same hand (presumably J. Craig Annan), so it is unclear how many of these are his own images or are that of Stauda and Kramer. We would assume they are more likely to be Annan's own photographs.
Smaller Prints:
10 x prints of Munich over 4 leaves.
Large Prints (one print per leaf):
3 leaves of engraving style prints.
Mixed Sizes of Print:
Followed by a mix of prints of different sizes from Berlin, Potsdam, Frankfurt, Eisenach, locations on the Rhine, Cologne, Brussels, Waterloo, Antwerp and Rotterdam (37 images over 15 pages).
In total the album has 69 images.
A particularly poignant touch is that Annan has inserted a pressed flower (we think a poppy), gathered at the fields of Waterloo by J.C. Annan in June 1886.
Oscar Kramer was a respected Austrian photographer, as was Johann Evangelista Stauda.