UNDATED – The Tews-Kate, the oldest house of Malente-Gremsmühlen in Germany. © Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com/Photo: Julius Simonsen
The story behind the image
This postcard shows the Tews-Kate which is the oldest house of Malente-Gremsmühlen in Germany. Produced probably in the 1920s by Julius Simonsen, who ran a postcard and art publishing business in Oldenburg in Holstein.
My ancesters had been living in Gremsmühlen and its neighborhood, so I really like the idea to see how they possibly might have lived in the 17th and 18th century.
The Tews-Kate dates back to before 1650. In 1969 it has been moved from its historic location at the corner Godenbergstrasse/Marktstrasse to a location in a nearby wood. Today, it is home to the local heritage museum and explains the way of living and working in the past to visitors, operated by volunteers of the region. Their web site shows an antique photo of the building from about the same angle as Simonsen’s photo, but the details are different.
What’s more, Simonsen’s photo looks like a reproduction of a drawing rather than a genuine photograph. Maybe his photo did not turn out as expected, and he decided to just use it as a template for this drawing? The differences were not too obvious in the final product, a 9 x 14 cm postcard which – upon first glance – looks like a typical postcard of the period, so buyers might not have noticed the differences (or not have cared.)
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Publisher Julius Simonsen was born in 1876 in a small town between Schleswig and Flensburg. A son of a butcher, he originally was trained to become a merchant but decided to move into the photo business at the age of 20. He joined the studio of L. Christensen in Oldenburg in Holstein and acquired the business just four years later, in 1899. During his lifetime, Simonsen photographed all the beautiful spots in northern Germany and printed and sold the postcards under the label Kunstverlag Julius Simonsen.
Nikolaus Julius Simonsen died on the 29th October 1943 in Oldenburg at the age of 67. His stunning work will continue to live in the archives forever, showing the beauty of a world that has significantly changed since then.
The high resolution image
| Capture Date | estmated 1920s |
| Photographer | Julius Simonsen |
| Location | Melente-Gremsmühlen, Germany |
| Image Source | 14 x 9 cm postcard |
| 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 | 6283 x 3935 Pixels |
| Copyright | © Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com/Photo: Julius Simonsen |
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