The manner of operation of the photography lab of the City Museum in Gdansk (Stadtmuseum Danzig) was reconstructed on the basis of pre-war negatives and archival documents.[1] Owing to the surviving negatives immortalising mainly the collections and displays of the City Museum in Gdansk, we obtained information on the organisation of the space for photographing and the types of cameras and media that were used for the taking and developing of photos. Although some of it does not directly concern the work of the City Museum, this still provides an insight into the employers’ additional duties and the types of the gathered visual documentation. The negatives present for example interiors of the architectural gems of Gdansk such as St. Mary’s church and Artus Court, views of Gdansk and photographs of illustrations possibly constituting iconographic and comparative material the museum staff used when organising lectures. Additionally, the negatives showing the interiors of architectural wonders of Gdansk are a separate set of holdings related to the figure of Willi Drost, the director of the City Museum, who also fulfilled the function of fine and decorative arts conservation officer and a State Curator of Museum Collections in West Prussia.

We may confirm, on the basis of a document kept at the State Archives in Gdansk, that the museum  had its own photography lab with a darkroom. At the City Museum in Gdansk, photographs were taken and catalogued by its staff, including the conservator-restorers Paul Haustein and Paul Gronert, as well as Dorothee Hildebrandt, who was employed especially to take photographs of objects of decorative art, the tops of Gdansk burger houses and materials designated for lectures. Her duties also included the organisation and tidying up of the museum’s photography archives. As results from the surviving sources, the process of the organisation of a photography lab at the City Museum was commenced at least during the directorship of Walter Mannowsky. Until then, the museum commissioned photographs from third parties. This thesis is confirmed by the inventory of glass negatives surviving in the State Archives in Gdansk. Initially, the services of the photography atelier Gottheil und Sohn were used. Interestingly, the oldest glass negatives, dated to 1915 on the list, were most probably entered later. It was established on the basis of the chronology of entries that the list was commenced between 1922 and 1924, since the information that the photographs were taken by the museum starts to appear in the document in question from these years, in the column “Aufgenommen von”, recording the names of the authors of the photographs. As far as the older negatives are concerned, the employees keeping the inventory of negatives could have information on the date on which they were taken and, wherever they were able to determine the dating of the particular negative, they would subsequently supplement the information. This is testified to by the absence of the dates by the negatives recorded on the first 13 pages. Later, dates are recorded only selectively. Consistency in dating begins as of 1924.

Photographs in the City Museum in Gdansk were taken on two types of media: glass negatives and films. The largest number of pre-war negatives survived in the form of glass plates. Films of various formats were used at the City Museum, with the most frequently used ones being 13×18cm, 18×24cm, 9×12cm, 6×9cm, 6.5×9cm, and 8.5×10cm. Photographs on glass negatives were taken for about 27 years. The oldest of them were ordered from the atelier Gottheil und Sohn, and later they were taken at the museum, through its own efforts. The second type of photosensitive material used at the City Museum was films. The ones which have survived until today are roll films – ones wound on a spool. Such films were used in 35mm still-cameras. The pre-war films surviving in the National Museum in Gdansk are primarily ‒ just like the glass plates ‒ AGFA materials, with some Perutz products as well. In both cases, these are 36-frame films with the 24×36mm format. At least several types of large and medium format cameras were used for the taking of photographs in the case of the glass negatives, while in the case of the films, the 35mm still-camera Zeiss-Ikon A.G., model Contax I, manufactured between 1932 and 1936, was used. Photomicrographs were also taken at the City Museum, allowing a singling out of selected parts of the photographed works of art, such as the weaves of fabrics or touchmarks in metal. Another way to magnify the photographed image was to use enlargers, which was an option usually selected for the making of copies of optical negatives.

Photographs were taken directly where they were displayed, in a place which was separated from the museum space and temporarily adjusted especially for the purpose, as well as in such places as the library and the offices of the employees. They were also taken outside. When preparing the space around the particular museum object which was to be photographed, limitations of space and its appropriate preparation through the dispersion of the source of light and the arrangement of a neutral background to better bring out the shape of the photographed object were taken into account. Sculptures, objects of decorative art and fabrics were often placed on specially constructed platforms and shelves covered with white fabric. A vast majority of paintings were photographed on easels. When the photographs were taken, the negatives were provided with a number and their description was recorded on the list of glass negatives. Registers of prints were also kept, providing information on what each of them showed, who made them and when, and their size.

The photographs made and catalogued by employees of the City Museum were mainly used as a visual documentation of museum objects. They were also used when organising and documenting permanent and temporary exhibitions. An interesting set of photographs is the group of holdings presenting illustrations from books. They constituted iconographic material used by museum employees for preparing lectures. Moreover, the photos were taken to document conservation and renovation works as well as inventory works related to the historical heritage of Gdansk and its environs (the surviving negatives concerning this topic are most probably related to the activity of Willi Drost as the heritage conservation officer). Taking into account the topics of the photographs, which were taken involving employees of the City Museum in Gdansk, we may assume that the prints and lists created a photo library containing the images of the holdings, photographs of  wonders of the Gdansk heritage as well as iconographic materials for exhibitions and lectures.

[1] State Archives in Gdansk (hereinafter: APG) 1384/60 – Platten Verzeichnis, 1919‒1941; APG 1384/20 – Verzeichnis Lichtbilder;  Bildkatalog des Herder-Instituts, DSHI 100 Drost 75 – Dienst-Buch für die Inventarisation 1934‒1939; Archives of the National Museum in Gdansk (hereinafter: Arch. MNG), MNG/A/I/10 – Verzeichnis Photographien, 1891‒1944; Arch. MNG, MNG/A/I/17 – Inventory of photographic prints.