Lot 4122: Ahrendts, Leopold: Views of von Hordt'sche Palais

Views of the former "von Hordt'sche Palais", Wilhelmstraße 69, at the corner of Unter den Linden. Early 1860s. 2 salt prints with rounded corners. 17,5 x 21,3 cm and 15,5 x 20,3. Each mounted to board (one strongly soiled, the other less), 1 annotated in ink in lower edge.
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. Ahrendts is undoubtedly one of the most important early German photographers who combined high technical standards with artful composition in his photographs.
Between 1818 -1834 the "von Hordtsche Palais" was the Berlin residence of Ernst August (1771-1851), King of Hanover (1837-1851), 1st Duke of Cumberland. Ernst August was married to Frederike of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the sister of Queen Luise of Prussia. Ernst August's son, later King George V, spent most of his childhood in this residence. The house existed in the state shown in this image until 1868 when a third floor was added. - Both with slight surface rubbing, slight soiling, one with slightly stronger abrasion in upper left, otherwise rich, dark prints in good condition with a strong reddish-brown tone.
Provenance: The estate of Ernst August von Hannover, 3rd Duke of Cumberland
Lit.: Galerie Berinson (ed.). With a text by Sigrid Schulze. Leopold Ahrendts und die Frühzeit der Photographie in Berlin. Berlin 2011.