Scowling children with toys in Hamburg, Germany
Click here to view it larger.
What it is:
Carte de visite (or a CDV-sized cabinet card) measuring a bit less than 2.5 x 4.25 inches.
What I know about it:
Photographer is Atelier J. Vogt [the J. Vogt Studio] in Hamburg, Germany. Otherwise undated and unidentified.
Comments:
This is another one of the ones my friend Christine (harriedcostumer) brought back for me from her time in Hamburg last fall. These kids just don’t look too pleased, do they? Encyclopedia Britannica says that a toy hoop is probably the world’s most ubiquitous toy after the ball, but the boy seems to be having none of it. And who can blame the girl for not being thrilled by what appears to be a fireplace shovel? Still, they are adorable.
Pics of Then 
Beautiful !
Thanks, Anisja!
🙂
that is so very … odd! Everything about this photo – the shovel, the plant, the giant bow on the boy…. I also wonder about the abrupt stop to the background. Was the image meant to be cropped somehow? What are they standing on?
They look like they’re just standing on a plain wooden floor, and that the bottom of the backdrop doesn’t lay flush with it. It’s a little strange that they wouldn’t take the time to set it up better, but there you go. The plant, I believe, is an aspidistra, which I’ve read is one of the few houseplants that can survive the soot of gas lighting.
aaah! Interesting! We forget that electric lighting wasn’t the norm back then…. Never thought about houseplants that would be killed by the gas lights!
Oh yes, and especially since the backdrop does not seem to show a scene of any kind, so the photographer wasn’t trying to make it appear correctly….