UNDATED – Portrait of a young lady. © by Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com/Photo: Ottmar Heydecker
The story behind the image
Here’s yet another Carte de Visite photograph I acquired a while ago. It shows a beautiful lady with a somewhat aristocratic look on her face. It was photographed in the studio of Ottmar Heydecker in Germany. Sadly, the image does not carry any handwritten notes or dates, so it is quite difficult to find out more about the lady.
But we do have at least an indication on the approximate date it was created. Ottmar Heydecker was pretty successful. He had opened his first studio in Hamburg in 1890 (at Hopfenmarkt 18 where he also lived), and only three years later he opened another studio in Steinstraße 147 which he kept until at least 1911. Records mention two additional studios in Hamburg (Kaiser-Wilhelm-Straße 46 and Leinpfad 27) and one in Königsberg, Prussia. It is unclear (to me) at which periods these were active.
The fashion style of the lady was popular during the last decade of the 19th century, with the peak being the period from 1895 to 1897. So, I’d say the photo was shot in or around 1896 in Hamburg (which was bigger and also the focus of Heydeckers activity.)
* * *
Photographer Ottmar Christian Heydecker was born in Augsburg or Munich, Germany, in 1861, as a son of an accountant. At some point in time he must have moved to Hamburg where he married Katharina Kunigunde Stollberger in 1890. The marriage record shows that he lived at the time close to the city center, at Hopfenmarkt 18-20.
His further fate is unknown, but like so many photographers, he might have been terribly affected by the first world war. He died in 1926 at the age of 65 years in Kassel in Lower Saxonia.
Design ideas
The high resolution image
| Capture Date | undated, c. 1895 |
| Location | Germany (most likely Hamburg) |
| Photographer | Ottmar Heydecker |
| Image Source | 6 x 9 cm black & white Carte de Visite (CdV) |
| 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 | 6011 x 9829 Pixels |
| Copyright | Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com/Photo: Ottmar Heydecker |
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