Felix Alexander Oppenheim, Photographies d'Athènes, 1854

View only results with digital items
Printable guide [HTML]

Summary

Creators:
Oppenheim, F. A. (Felix Alexander ), 1819-1898
Abstract:
The album contains 20 views of the Acropolis and monuments in Athens, Greece taken by German photographer F. A. Oppenheim in 1853.
Extent:
2 Linear Feet 1 album
Language:
Collection material is in German.
Preferred citation:

Felix Alexander Oppenheim, Photographies d'Athènes, 1854, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 90.R.76.

https://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa90r76

Background

Scope and content:

The album contains 20 views of the Acropolis and monuments in Athens, Greece taken by Felix Alexander Oppenheim in 1853. Monuments depicted include the Propylaia; the Parthenon, including four individual blocks of its frieze; the Erechtheion; the Hephaisteion (Temple of Theseus and Herakles); the Horologion of Andronikos (Tower of the Winds); the Monument of Lysikrates; the Arch of Hadrian; and the Olympieion (Temple of Olympian Zeus).

The photographs are followed by "Die untere Stadt," the two-page text aqccompanying the third section of his album Athenische Alterthüme.

Captions are printed in German on the mounts below the images; the captions have been used as image titles.

Biographical / historical:

The German photographer, Felix Alexander Oppenheim (1819-1898), began his career as a lawyer. The youngest son of Martin Wilhelm Oppenheim, a banker, and his wife Rosa (née Alexander), Oppenheim was born in Königsberg. After leaving the Königsberg Altstädtische Gymnasium in 1836, Oppenheim studied law. He was acting as legal counsel for Countess Sophie von Hatzfeld against her husband, Edmund Fürst von Hatzfeldt-Wildenburg zu Trachenberg, when, in the summer of 1846, he and Dr. Arnold Mendelssohn stole a box containing documents belonging to Baroness Meyendorf, the mistress of Prince Edmund von Hatzfeld-Wildenburg, which they thought might contain information pertinent to the Hatzfeld case. The men were discovered and fled. Although Oppenheim soon turned himself into the police and was subsequently acquitted of the theft, he he could no longer practice law.

Leaving Germany, and with no need to work, Oppenheim began to travel extensively. In late 1851 or early 1852 he studied photography with Gustav Le Gray. He then traveled and photographed in Spain in 1852 where, finding that waxed-paper negatives were difficult to produce in hot climates, he experimented with albumen and sugar milk (whey). His letter about his experiences was published in La Lumière (no. 15, 9 April 1853), and subsequently in Humphrey's Journal (no. 4, June 1, 1853), and Photographic Art Journal (no. 3, September 1853).

In the fall of 1853, Oppenheim traveled in Greece. Athenische Alterthüme, his album of the antiquities of Athens containing a total of 42 salted paper photographs, appeared in 1854 (wherein his name was printed as A. F. Oppenheim). It was divided into three sections, each with an accompanying text: "Die Akropolis," "Details der Akropolis," and "Die unterer Stadt."

Oppenheim returned to Germany in 1857, settling in Dresden. He began to make photographs of German cities and buildings. Among other subjects he photographed the Dresden buildings designed by architect Gottfried Semper who was a family friend.

Sources consulted:

Szwast, Miriam. Felix Alexander Oppenheim: a Traveling Photographer in Athens in 1853: Searching for Traces. Volume 3 of Photography Collection, Museum Ludwig Sammlung Fotografie. Cologne: Museum Ludwig, 2020.

Truog, Alain R., "'Silent Ruins, F. A. Oppenheim Photographs the Ancient World' at the Ludwig Museum." http://www.alaintruong.com/archives/2020/02/13/38021198.html

Acquisition information:
Acquired in 1990.
Processing information:

Cataloged by Jamie Allen in 2005 under the supervision of Beth Ann Guynn who wrote the finding aid in 2020.

Arrangement:

Arranged in a single series: Series I. Photographies d'Athènes, 1854.

Physical location:
Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory through the catalog record for this collection. Click here for the access policy.
Physical facet:
(20 photographs)
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Terms of access:

Contact Library Reproductions and Permissions.

Preferred citation:

Felix Alexander Oppenheim, Photographies d'Athènes, 1854, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 90.R.76.

https://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa90r76

Location of this collection:
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles, CA 90049-1688, US
Contact:
(310) 440-7390
Website