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Rear focusing wooden Reisekamera with rotating bellows

Object | Accession Number: 1990.83.2
1990.83.2 open Rear focusing wooden Reisekamera with rotating bellows Click to enlarge 1990.83.2 closed Rear focusing wooden Reisekamera with rotating bellows Click to enlarge 1990.83.2 back Rear focusing wooden Reisekamera with rotating bellows Click to enlarge

Wooden tailboard or travel camera with a rotating bellows for capturing horizontal and vertical photographs made in Europe around the turn of the 20th century. This type of camera has a hinged base or tailboard, allowing for rear focusing with a ground glass back. Once the focus is fixed, the glass is replaced with a glass plate negative. This variant of tailboard camera is also known as a continental view due to its equally wide front and body sections. Travel cameras were developed for use by professional photographers outside the studio. The design was perfected in Germany, where they are called Reisekamera, but often produced in other central European countries including France, where they are known as Chambre de Voyage. They were especially popular between 1895 and 1914.

Date
manufacture:  approximately 1890
Classification
Audiovisual and Photographic Materials
Category
Cameras
Object Type
Travel camera (ushmm)
Credit Line
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection

About This Object

Physical Description
Rectangular, brown wooden plate camera with a telescoping green and black leather bellows and brass colored metal fittings. On the fixed, L shaped front is a central hole ringed by a wooden mount for a lens, now missing, with a flat, corroded metal band and a metal knob and threaded metal post above. It is attached to the movable center body by the bellows and to the back by 2 butterfly hinges. On top of the body, there are 3 small holes and a flat, pivoting metal tab. On the exterior back is a flat metal hook above a small nail, a circular hole, and a threaded metal tripod mount. The back folds down to form a base with 2 parallel metal strips, with 3 aligned sets of 2 slots, screwed to a center panel. The body of the camera has a hinged, removable translucent ground glass focusing back. To focus this, it is manually pulled over the base until 4 nails on the bottom or the left side slide into the slots, locking it in place on the panel, with the bellows extended vertically or horizontally. A metal knob on each side of the base moves the panel along a metal rack and pinion.
Dimensions
overall: Height: 7.375 inches (18.733 cm) | Width: 6.000 inches (15.24 cm) | Depth: 3.750 inches (9.525 cm)
Materials
overall : wood, metal, glass, leather, paint, cloth, adhesive, varnish
Markings
front, interior, top center, engraved : 83

Keywords and Subjects

Administrative History

Legal Status
Permanent Collection
Provenance
The camera was acquired by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1990.
Funding Note
The cataloging of this artifact has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

Rights and Restrictions

Conditions on Access
No restrictions on access
Conditions on Use
No restrictions on use

 
Record last modified: 2022-07-28 18:21:32
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn4122

Also in Prewar German travel camera and tabletop radio collection

The collection consists of a wood encased Reisekamera and an AEG 28W tabletop radio manufactured in Germany.

Date: approximately 1890-1938

AEG 28W radio receiver for long wave and broadcast signals

AEG 28W radio receiver for long wave and broadcast signals

Object

AEG 28W tabletop radio manufactured by the German company AEG (Allgemeine Elektricitaˆts-Gesellschaft), a pioneer in electrical power engineering and a worldwide supplier of electrical equipment and systems. AEG factories were essential to the production of aircraft, automobiles, and railways. In 1933, AEG provided financial support for the newly formed Nazi government. The company initially resisted the antisemitic racial policies of the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 and retained Jewish employees, including members of the managing board. But in 1936-37, facing financial difficulties, the company complied with Nazi policy. By 1943, AEG was an integral part of the war economy. It was a major consumer of slave labor from the ghettos and camps, locating factories near sites such as Riga, Latvia, and Auschwitz III with ample labor supplies. The company voluntarily made reparation payments in 1960.

View All 2 Items in the Collection