Oberst: Bahnhofstrasse, Oelsnitz i/V. Circa 1890.
Cabinet-card photograph, 4” x 5.5” plus mount. Photographer’s imprint in gilt at foot of recto. Verso blank. CONDITION: Very good, image with faint black spots at margins, mount minimally worn at verso.
A wonderfully preserved photograph of children among a bounty of rugs, likely taken in Germany to promote an oriental-style carpet store.
This image shows a dress-clad girl in a fez, pointing to a seated young boy holding a box filled with fabric and a loom comb. Behind the two appears to be a jacquard loom, at the sides of which can be seen paper patterns that may have been used to plan the rug that is shown being woven inside the loom. In front of this arrangement is a flintlock musket, and to the right of the children is what appears to be a bumbass, a popular German folk instrument. We believe that the inclusion of the bumbass and the children’s garb (apart from their conspicuous headwear) suggests that this photograph is a staged scene of a German carpet store that made Oriental-style rugs for the local market, rather than a carpet store from Turkey or owned by Middle Eastern or North African immigrants.
Photographer Paul Oberst’s stated location of Oelsnitz is further suggestive of the commercial nature of this image. Textiles had been a major part of Oelsnitz’s economy since the seventeenth century, and by the nineteenth century, there emerged several “factories that produced corsets and curtains,” and by 1880, “the carpet industry reached Oelsnitz.” By the turn of the century, local entrepreneurs invented looms to aid in the manufacture of Oriental-style embroidered rugs. The present image was likely made in part because of this broader trend in German carpet manufacturing.
Sources Consulted: “Rug Weaving Loom” at NazmiyalCollection online; “The History of Oelsnitz” at OelsnitzCouncil online.
Oberst: Bahnhofstrasse, Oelsnitz i/V. Circa 1890.
Cabinet-card photograph, 4” x 5.5” plus mount. Photographer’s imprint in gilt at foot of recto. Verso blank. CONDITION: Very good, image with faint black spots at margins, mount minimally worn at verso.
A wonderfully preserved photograph of children among a bounty of rugs, likely taken in Germany to promote an oriental-style carpet store.
This image shows a dress-clad girl in a fez, pointing to a seated young boy holding a box filled with fabric and a loom comb. Behind the two appears to be a jacquard loom, at the sides of which can be seen paper patterns that may have been used to plan the rug that is shown being woven inside the loom. In front of this arrangement is a flintlock musket, and to the right of the children is what appears to be a bumbass, a popular German folk instrument. We believe that the inclusion of the bumbass and the children’s garb (apart from their conspicuous headwear) suggests that this photograph is a staged scene of a German carpet store that made Oriental-style rugs for the local market, rather than a carpet store from Turkey or owned by Middle Eastern or North African immigrants.
Photographer Paul Oberst’s stated location of Oelsnitz is further suggestive of the commercial nature of this image. Textiles had been a major part of Oelsnitz’s economy since the seventeenth century, and by the nineteenth century, there emerged several “factories that produced corsets and curtains,” and by 1880, “the carpet industry reached Oelsnitz.” By the turn of the century, local entrepreneurs invented looms to aid in the manufacture of Oriental-style embroidered rugs. The present image was likely made in part because of this broader trend in German carpet manufacturing.
Sources Consulted: “Rug Weaving Loom” at NazmiyalCollection online; “The History of Oelsnitz” at OelsnitzCouncil online.
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