[House in Winterthur, Switzerland]

Unknown

ca. 1850 · Daguerreotype · Photographs

Many daguerreotypists recorded places and events that had personal meaning now lost to history. Such is the case here. Like many daguerreotypes, it no doubt passed through generations of a family before finding its way, perhaps through the hands of a flea-market "picker," to a London auction in 1975, where it was purchased by William Rubel. Lost along the way was the knowledge of just who the women on the balcony and in the garden were, and who the two young boys were, posing before the camera with their long wooden sticks for hornussen, a ball game played in northern Switzerland. All that remains is the art: light filtering through the trees on a charming scene of mid-nineteenth-century life.

Artist

Unknown

Date

ca. 1850

Medium

Daguerreotype

Department

Photographs

Credit line

The Rubel Collection, Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, 1997