Lot 3: Oskar H. Fielitz (1819-1859) , Portrait of Sophie Reuter and her daughters, 1855

Full plate daguerreotype. In its original mount and original frame. The reverse of the frame is dated and bears the names of the sitters in unknown hands.

measurements note sight area (oval) 15.7 x 12.5 cm (6 1/8 x 4 7/8 in.)

Munich, Stadtmuseum, 1978, Königlich Bayrische Photographie 1838-1918, 1978.

Gebhardt, Heinz, Königlich Bayrische Photographie 1838-1918, Munich, Lanterna Magica, 1978, p. 145.

Collection of the Reuter family, Braunschweig

This sumptuous daguerreotype shows Mrs. Sophie Reuter with four of her daughters. Mrs. Reuter was the wife of a notable of Braunschweig in Northern Germany. Friedrich Wilhem Reuter was owner of a tobacco factory, director of the city's water and gas supply companies and member of the State parliament.
Oskar Fielitz is known as one of the most skilled German daguerreotypists. He used whole plate sizes for his studio portraits. When his daguerreotypes were exhibited in the first German Industrial Exhibition in Munich in 1854, they caused a sensation and won the Gold Medal. Fielitz's speciality was to reduce the mirroring of the silver surface of the daguerreotype plate - an effect that viewers disliked very much at the time. The result of his technique was a bluish or 'graphite' surface with very neat and elegant rendering.