HOW COLOUR ENTERED THE PICTURE
Hand-colouring is a striking feature of many photographs of traditional dress from the Schaumburg region. Colour was applied to the finished print with fine brushes. Outlines, shadows and details came from the photograph; colour chiefly emphasised the elements that defined the appearance of the traditional dress.
The amount of work varied considerably. Some photographs were carefully coloured down to the smallest ornaments, pieces of jewellery and flowers; others received only a few bold areas of colour.
These differences may have reflected price and intended use. Elaborately coloured photographs may have been made for private clients, while more simply coloured prints were better suited to larger production runs.
Hand-coloured photographs of traditional dress are also known from other regions. In Schaumburg, however, the number of studios involved and the frequency of recurring motifs are striking. There was evidently a sustained demand for colour images of regional clothing.
Colour thus did more than enhance an individual photograph. It made traditional dress an eye-catching subject and helped disseminate a recognisable image of Schaumburg.
WHAT TRADITIONAL DRESS MEANT
Traditional dress was originally not a costume worn for disguise or performance, but a regionally distinctive form of clothing. It developed and changed over a long period. Materials, local crafts, economic circumstances, religious affiliation, fashion and social conventions meant that clothing differed from one area to another, sometimes even between neighbouring villages.
Traditional dress made origins and belonging visible. Particular garments, colours, jewellery and headdresses could also indicate age, marital status, wealth and occasion. Clothing was thus part of everyday life, a social language and an expression of regional identity.
Schaumburg was long known as the “land of red skirts”. Yet there was no single form of Schaumburg dress. Distinctions include the Apelern, Österten, Westerten, Frille and Holtrup traditions. One important distinguishing feature was the ribbon headdress, whose shape varied by locality; the long red woollen skirt was common to the women’s dress traditions.
Bückeburg dress belongs to the Westerten tradition, which was found west of Stadthagen as far as the Schaumburg Forest. Women’s festive clothing included a linen shift, bodice, red ribbon-trimmed skirt, embroidered apron, shoulder shawl, white collar, knitted “Handschen” or mitts, as well as necklaces and silver clasps. The large black winged headdress was particularly striking. Its sweeping loops gave Bückeburg dress an unmistakable silhouette, and grew larger over time. This too shows that traditional dress was not a uniform that had remained unchanged for centuries. As prosperity increased, embroidery and jewellery became more elaborate; trade brought new fabrics, ribbons and beads into the region.1
1 See Lücking, Wolf / Sturma, Jürgen: Trachten im Schaumburger Land, Münster 2002; Kästing, Friederike / Mensching, Sophie: Rote Röcke. Trachten und Brauchtum im Schaumburger Land, Stadthagen 2000.
Between 1860 and 1880, photography spread, became more accessible and attracted increasing numbers of studios to the region. A costly studio visit was usually reserved for a special occasion. Those who had their photograph taken dressed with corresponding care, in their Sunday best or festive clothing — often the traditional dress they normally wore for such occasions. Many surviving images from this period probably show local people photographed for their families or personal circles. The private portrait is therefore an important possible original purpose of these early photographs of traditional dress.
Particularly revealing are late nineteenth-century portraits of couples in which different ways of dressing meet. The women still wear traditional dress, while the men appear in smart middle-class clothing or uniform.
Such combinations point to a period of social transition. The more restrained men’s traditional dress — linen shirt or smock, waistcoat, trousers and cap — apparently fell out of general use earlier than women’s dress. While men were already wearing suits or uniforms, women continued to appear in traditional clothing. Older and newer styles could thus coexist within the same family.
THE IMAGE OF A REGION —
A
BUSINESS
Photographs of Bückeburg traditional dress were made both as private portraits for local people and as souvenirs and collectors’ images. They therefore document only part of the lived tradition of regional dress, while also helping to shape an idealised image of the region.
Studios had several sources of business: private portraits, photographs of visitors in regional dress and staged traditional-dress scenes. Clothing, poses, props and backdrops could be deliberately combined, and the negatives subsequently reused.
Some photographs were probably originally made as private portraits. Particularly suitable images could later be printed again from the existing negative and offered as souvenirs. The photograph then represented more than an individual: it became a reusable motif.
Other photographs were apparently intended for this market from the outset. Scenes of village life were recreated in the studio or against a suitable backdrop. Their purpose was less to document actual daily life than to convey a vivid impression of life in the region.
Stamps and inscriptions on the reverse show that these photographs were also distributed through other retail outlets. The mark of Heinrich Habenicht’s haberdashery, fancy-goods and leather-goods shop in Minden demonstrates that individual motifs reached markets beyond the place where they were made.
As these images circulated, traditional-dress photography became increasingly detached from the individuals depicted. Recurring clothing, poses, backdrops and props turned individual photographs into readily recognisable images of the region.
This development continued with printed postcards well into the twentieth century. Successful motifs could be reproduced repeatedly, shaping perceptions of Schaumburg.
Traditional dress, rural life, landscape and the idea of a supposedly unspoilt homeland merged into an idealised visual world. These images had an influence far beyond their original photographic and commercial context and could later be appropriated to serve different ideas of homeland and identity.
PICTURES AND THEIR STORIES
Photographs tell stories. Yet found and inherited images often outlive the people who could explain why they were taken. Sometimes all that remains is a name, a dedication or a note on the reverse.
Such traces can be compared with other photographs and historical sources. The following examples show what they reveal about the sitters, the intended use and the production of the images—and which questions remain unanswered.
Names on the Reverse
Photographs often bear handwritten dedications or names. In the example featuring the sisters Mathilde and Jenny, the inscription suggests a private portrait and a personal keepsake.
Another example from the F. W. Kuhlmann studio shows a woman and a girl in traditional dress. The reverse names “Mrs Baumann” and “Ella Baumann”. These names show that the sitters were remembered as specific individuals and suggest private use.
Visitors in Bückeburg Traditional Dress
A group portrait from the F. W. Kuhlmann studio shows several women in Bückeburg traditional dress and a man. The reverse changes our interpretation: it commemorates an outing to Obernkirchen in 1905 and lists places of origin for several women, including Bremen, Hanover and probably Charlottenburg. Some of the group therefore came from outside the region.
The Same Negative, Different Colours
Two surviving prints match in pose, facial features, clothing and backdrop, but differ in colouring and decoration. The negative was therefore certainly used more than once. The comparison also shows that hand-colouring did not necessarily record the colours actually worn.
Rural Life Staged for the Camera
Photographs from L. Feuerrohr’s studio in Rinteln and Bad Nenndorf show how rural life was staged in the studio.
Stuffed chickens and pigeons, a prop fence and a painted landscape created the desired setting. The chickens are particularly revealing: the same birds appear in different places in both photographs, having been repositioned for each sitting.
Particularly interesting is the comparison of the same young woman in traditional dress and in ordinary clothing. The inscription on the reverse explicitly describes the two depictions as “in Bückeburg traditional dress and in ordinary clothes”.
Since the photographs bear her name, they were probably commissioned as private portraits. Whether the woman came from the region or was a visitor photographed in the studio remains unknown.
The photographs reveal how a version of regional life could be constructed in the studio: sitter, traditional dress, backdrop and props were combined to create a seemingly authentic rural scene.
STUDIOS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS
The surviving work of different photographers shows that similar forms of photographic representation emerged across the region. Alongside conventional portraits, studios produced staged and, above all, coloured photographs of traditional dress. As commercial businesses, they created more than private keepsakes: they also shaped a particular photographic image of the region.
Gustav David
Studio in Bückeburg, Lange Straße 42
L. Feuerrohr
Studios in Rinteln and Bad Nenndorf
William Focke
Studio in Bückeburg
William Focke worked in Hanover in association with the firm Focke & Ahlfeld, later under his own name with a branch in Bückeburg.
Emma Goldstein
Studios in Bückeburg, Langestraße 3, and Minden, Kleiner Domhof 11
Emma Goldstein was among the relatively few women working professionally in photography as early as the late nineteenth century.
Emma Goldstein produced conventional portraits, humorous and staged costume pictures, and coloured portraits in traditional dress. One example of a humorous staged costume picture is a photograph from Bückeburg dated 21 March 1896. The handwritten inscription identifies the two young women as “Miss Mosbach and Miss Schkerl dressed as an old married couple”.
G. Klimmer
Studio in Bückeburg, Ulmen-Allee
Kuhlmann Studio
Studio in Bückeburg, Schulstraße 19; later also in Bad Eilsen
The history of the Kuhlmann studio can be traced as that of a long-established family business. Earlier cards bear the name F. Kuhlmann, Bückeburg, Schulstraße 19; later ones name “F. W. Kuhlmann”, with an additional location in Bad Eilsen.
A hand-coloured portrait of a couple in traditional dress dated 1896 bears the inscription “F. W. Kuhlmann – Photographic Establishment – Bückeburg – Reproduction Prohibited” on the reverse. This indicates that the motif was regarded as a commercially exploitable image.
By the early twentieth century at the latest, the F. W. Kuhlmann art publishing firm was selling numbered postcards featuring traditional dress and local views. The studio’s stock of negatives, originally kept for reorders, had become a reproducible image archive and ultimately a publishing catalogue.
The precise family relationship between F., F. W. and J. Kuhlmann remains unresolved. It is nevertheless plausible that the business passed from father to son. The negative archive of a Bückeburg photographic studio had become an image collection and art-publishing business continued across generations.
Moritz Sweers
Studio in Minden, Bäckerstraße 25
The backs of his photographs advertise the studio with drawings of a plate camera, photographic chemicals and a painter’s palette and brushes. The studio’s own presentation thus brings together photographic technique and the subsequent working of the image.
Friedrich Wehde
Studios in Bückeburg and Stadthagen, Bahnhofsweg 6; previously in Hanover, Osterstrase 83
Friedrich Wehde stands out among the region’s image-makers for the quality of his hand-colouring. A trade retrospective published in 1920 reports that he originally worked as a glass painter and opened a photographic studio in December 1879. He later ran studios in Bückeburg and Stadthagen and held the title of court photographer.
Wehde’s finest traditional-dress photographs stand out for their particularly careful colouring. The colour follows fabrics, folds and shadows, bringing out flowers, jewellery and patterns. His earlier work as a glass painter may explain his assured handling of small areas and subtle colours.
The name Friedrich Wehde later continued as a business name. After the First World War, the designation “Court Photographer Friedrich Wehde, Successor, Proprietor O. Wehde” appears.