Collection: Constantin Uhde Collection

Description

The collection comprises 2 published volumes containing collotype photomechanical prints entitled 'Baudenkmaeler [architectural monuments] in Grossbritannien' and published in Berlin in 1894 (UDE01/01 & UDE01/02). There are also five loose prints duplicating views held within the volumes (UDE01/03).

The albums provide a fine series of views of what seemed to the editor, Constantin Uhde the most architecturally significant English buildings, ranging chronologically from Stonehenge to Sir James Pennethorne's University of London building in Burlington Gardens (more recently the Museum of Mankind).

The focus of the publication is mainly on the major medieval cathedrals and on the palaces and the country houses of the Tudor and Stuart periods, Dr Uhde selecting for illustration all the principal buildings then attributed to John Thorpe. The photographic plates, by the Dresden firm of Roemmler and Jonas, are excellent throughout, and form between them the best photographic review published up to that date, the high spot of English architecture up to about the time of Sir Christopher Wren.

These large folios are bound in contemporary quarter calf with marbled boards. They contain 174 pages with 180 plates. The captions are in English, German and French. The photographer is unknown. Excluding cathedral and house interiors approximately 95% of the photographs show figures. Some are soldiers, bystanders, policemen, children, workmen and servants but a large number show a gentleman in a bowler hat (possibly as many as 50%) with a few of a man in a cloth cap identifiable in the Chester, Lacock, Litchfield, Cheshire photographs. A third man is identifiable in other photographs. This inclusion of figures, which was not usual in England at this date, suggests that the photographer was German. There is a small number of Scottish and Welsh plates.

The photographs appear to have been taken over a relatively short period (spring summer) as gardens are in flower and trees in leaf.

Archival History

The volumes were acquired by the NMR in 2002. The loose prints were acquired before 2007 from an unknown source.

Content

Rights

Source: Historic England Archive