Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
Oppenheim (Felix Alexander), Photographies
d'Athènes
90.R.76
No online items
View entire collection guide
Search this collection
Table of contents
Title: Felix Alexander Oppenheim, Photographies d'Athènes,
Date (inclusive): 1854
Number: 90.R.76
Creator/Collector:
Oppenheim, F. A. (Felix Alexander ),
1819-1898
Physical Description:
2 Linear Feet
1 album
(20 photographs)
Repository:
The Getty Research Institute
Special Collections
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles 90049-1688
Business Number: (310) 440-7390
Fax Number: (310) 440-7780
reference@getty.edu
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10020/askref
(310) 440-7390
Abstract: The album contains 20 views of the
Acropolis and monuments in Athens, Greece taken by German photographer F. A. Oppenheim in
1853.
Request Materials: Request access to the physical materials
described in this inventory through the
catalog
record
for this collection. Click here for the
access
policy
.
Language: Collection material is in
German.
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
Contact
Library Reproductions
and Permissions
.
Felix Alexander Oppenheim, Photographies d'Athènes, 1854, The Getty Research Institute, Los
Angeles, Accession no. 90.R.76.
https://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa90r76
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Acquired in 1990.
Cataloged by Jamie Allen in 2005 under the supervision of Beth Ann Guynn who wrote the
finding aid in 2020.
The collection was digitized by the repository and the images are available online:
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/96r76
Scope and Content of Collection
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.
Arranged in a single series: Series I. Photographies d'Athènes, 1854.
Olympieion (Athens, Greece)
Parthenon (Athens, Greece)
Erechtheum (Athens, Greece)
Propylaea (Acropolis, Athens, Greece)
Hephaisteion (Athens, Greece)
Arch of Hadrian (Athens, Greece)
Acropolis (Athens, Greece)
Tower of the Winds (Athens, Greece)
Athens (Greece) -- Buildings, structures, etc.
Architecture, Greek -- Greece -- Athens
Athens (Greece) -- Buildings, structures, etc.
Temples -- Greece -- Athens
Athens (Greece) -- Antiquities
Athens (Greece) -- Description and
travel
Photographs, Original.
Albumen prints -- Greece -- 19th century
Oppenheim, F. A. (Felix Alexander ),
1819-1898