An undated cabinet photo shows Christian Nagel (right) and his family in Birkenfeld, Germany. Scan © Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com
The story behind the image
Last week I already posted a digitally remastered version of an old cabinet photo showing one line of her family tree around 1900. Here is a cabinet photo that shows another line, namely the Nagel family from Birkenfeld.
This image was part of the same lot of 43 images that I received from a relative. Apparently, she had taken the images from albums where they were fastened with (modern) double sided stickers. She put the stack of photos into an envelope and sent them by mail. Sadly, she did not realize that some of the images would stick together during the transport thanks to the remains of the stickers. Oh my! I carefully separated the images and repaired the remaining damages digitally.
Anyway, this is a cabinet photo that shows – as per the handwritten note on the back – Christian Nagel (right), his wife Friederike, née Brenner (left), and their kids: Friedrich Karl and Emma (in the back) and Gustav Adolf (front row, left) and Karl Wilhelm.
The family had been positioned by the photographer in front of a (badly) painted backdrop showing a castle and some blurred forest on two hills. Obviously this is not the real landscape, but further hints are the folds in the backdrop in the top-left corner, and the fact that the landscape suddenly changes on the right where the backdrop ends. Here we can even spot thin ropes that tie the backdrop to a ladder.
Maybe they had asked a local photographer to come to their house? But it is more likely that they had visited a traveling photographer who had come to Birkenfeld. This was common practice in more rural areas. The photographer would visit the town or village for a couple of days and offer his services. Customers would drop by and get an image.
While the pure dimensions of the image (16.3 x 11.5 cm) sound promising and certainly qualify as ‘large’, the photographer did a bad job on this one. Either the print had not been properly focused, or the originating photo negative had been already out of focus. The lack of detail in the print is really shocking and would not have called for a scan at 2,400 dpi. But since I had to return the images I used the high resolution to squeeze out every bit of detail from the scan.
And I squuezed it a lot, digitally. Here’s the comparison of the color-calibrated scan and its remstered version:
Archive managers might complain that the remastered image does not show the photograph “as is”, i.e. it does not show the condition when I got it But that has never been my intention anyway. I aim for creating images that come close to the original as it was delivered to the customers back then, vivid and realistic portraits. Images you’d actually want to watch and inspect. And I think I achieved this objective.
As for the capture date, I’d estimate it to be the summer of 1897. The clothes match that time, and Emma would be 14 years by then. Her father would be 43, which seems to be reasonable as well. This small table provides the approximate ages in July 1897. They were all born in Birkenfeld.
| Name | Date of Birth | Approx. age, July 1897 |
| Christian Nagel | 21/12/1854 | 42 years |
| Friedericke Brenner | 12/09/1852 | 44 years |
| Friedrich Karl | 04/08/1880 | 16 years |
| Emma | 03/02/1883 | 14 years |
| Gustav Adolf | 08/06/1885 | 12 years |
| Karl Wilhelm | 05/06/1888 | 9 years |
In any event, this image is another real gem from the archive that can now be enjoyed for centuries to come in its remastered version.
Design ideas
The high resolution image
| Capture Date | c. 1897 |
| Photographer | unknown |
| Location | Birkenfeld, Germany |
| Image Source | c. 16.3 x 11.5 cm photo mounted to solid cardboard |
| Digital Image Source | EPSON Perfection 4870 Photo |
| Digital Image Source Format | TIFF, 24 bits/pixel, sRGB |
| Edited Image Format | JPEG, 24 bits/pixel, sRGB |
| Edited Image Dimensions | 15339 x 10879 Pixels |
| Copyright | © Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com |
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