Lot 4001: Ahrendts, Leopold: Burgstraße - Lange Brücke, Blick auf Mühlendamm

"Burgstraße - Lange Brücke mit Blick auf den Mühlendamm, Berlin". Early 1850s. Lightly coated salt print with cut corners. 16 x 21,5 cm. Flush-mounted to board.
Leopold Ahrendts worked first as a painter and lithographer in Dessau before moving to Berlin circa 1850, where he presented lithographs at the Academy of the Arts exhibition that same year. In 1856 he began working in the studio of the court photographer Philipp Graff. He exhibited his first photographs under the name of the Graff Studio and shortly thereafter he began signing his photos with his own name. He is undoubtedly one of the most important early German photographers who combined high technical standards with artful composition in his photographs. When comparing this image with the photograph by Ahrendts offered in Bassenge auction 93, lot 4120, which is taken from almost exactly the same vantage point, this image appears to have been taken quite a bit earlier: In this photo one of the houses on the left does not yet have the additional storey the image offered in our previous auction showed.
- A few small retouched spots in lower area, traces of previous mounting on the verso, otherwise a rich, dark print in excellent condition with a strong reddish-brown tone.
Lit.: Bodo von Dewitz/ Wolfgang Horbert (eds.). Schatzhäuser der Photographie. Die Sammlung des Fürsten zu Wied. Göttingen 1998, ill. p. 85.
Lothar de Maizière/Antonius Jammers (eds.). Bevor Berlin zur Weltstadt wurde - die Residenz in Fotografien von Leopold Ahrendts. Berlin 2001, ill. p. 77 (variant).