Johanne Oehlwein, Weimar, Germany, 1892

1892 – A cabinet photo shows Johanne Schütze, born Oehlwein, in a photo studio in Weimar, Germany. Photo: Louis Held

---

The story behind the image

Here’s an undated cabinet photo that was part of the Schütze-Oßwald lot I acquired last year. The studio portrait was shot by Louis Held in Weimar.

The image shows the mother of Hedwig Schütze. A handwritten note on the back dates the image to “estimated 1892”. There are several further notes that were apparently applied over a longer period as the genealogic research progressed.

A search on Ancestry with this data returns her death record which provides a lot more information. This enables us to create this profile of Johanne:

First name	Juliane Elisabeth Johanne
Last name	Schütze
Maiden name	Oehlwein
Date and place of birth	26th March 1836 in Markvippach near Weimar, Germany
Father	Georg Traugott Moritz Oehlwein
Mother	Charlotte Magdalene Oehlwein, born Köhler
Husband	Gustav Heinrich Albinus Schütze
Date and place of marriage	unknown
Date and place of death	3rd July 1910, Weimar, Germany

And this information is fully aligned with the notes on the images of her parents. Wow.

This large cabinet photo – an albumin print mounted on solid cardboard – is in a good condition, especially considering its age, and it shows just very few spots and minor damages here and there. It shows a bright yellow/brownish tint, and I think it’s a sign of age but it could well be that this was close to the original look when developed in the studio in 1892. For my edit above I removed the tint to recover the presumable look of the original black-and-white negative.

* * *

The photographer

Louis Held (1851-1927) was a photo pioneer of his time. On April 1, 1882, he opened his photo studio in Weimar, always trying to expand his artwork into new areas that went beyond traditional portrait photography. For example, he photographed people and artists outside the studio in their surroundings, in their living and working environment. He also documented daily life in Weimar as one of the first press photographers in Germany. From 1910 he also explored the moving images and created several documentaries and news clips. In 1912, he founded a cinema in Weimar.

At the time of writing, the photo studio still exists at Marienstraße 1 in Weimar, owned and operated by photographer Stefan Renno who uses modern photo technology and maintains the extensive archive.

Read more about Louis Held at Wikipedia (in German.)

---

Design ideas

---

The high resolution image

Capture Date	c. 1892
Photographer	Louis Held, Weimar
Location	Weimar, Germany
Image Source	Albumen print from a glass negative, mounted to cardboard, cabinet format (c. 10 x 14 cm)
Digital Image Source	EPSON Perfection 4870 Photo
Digital Image Source Format	TIFF, 48 bits/pixel, sRGB
Edited Image Format	JPEG, 24 bits/pixel, sRGB
Edited Image Dimensions	9446 x 13479 Pixels
Copyright	Photo © Louis Held Scan © Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com