[Study of three covered glass vessels]

This photograph of three articles of glass derives from a larger series depicting objects in the collection of the Prussian civil servant Baron Alexander von Minutoli. This private collection formed the basis of the Minutolisches Institut in Liegnitz (now Legnica, Poland), which opened to the public in 1845 with the purpose of improving the quality of locally made goods through the study of decorative arts. Beginning in 1842, Baron von Minutoli hired a local photographer to produce daguerreotypes of his collection, which were then lent to local craftsmen, manufacturers, and members of trade guilds. After several years in circulation, the one-of-a-kind daguerreotype plates were worn, so Baron von Minutoli hired the photographer Ludwig Belitski to make new photographs of the collection using wet collodion on glass negatives. This process offered a high level of descriptive detail, as well as the ability to print in multiple, and thus to publish and distribute more widely images of the collection. In 1855, 150 of Belitski’s photographs of textiles, glass, metalwork, wood carving, and ceramics were published as tipped in salted paper prints in the instructive tome Vorbilder für Handwerker und Fabrikanten aus den Sammlungen des Minutolischen Instituts zur Veredelung der Gewerbe und Befoerderung der Künste zu Liegnitz [Examples for Craftsmen and Fabricators from the Collections of the Minutoli Institute for the refinement of trade materials and the Advancement of the Arts in Liegnitz.] This photograph demonstrates Belitski’s carefully controlled approach of arranging and illuminating like objects against a black backdrop to document their form and decoration. His techniques both ensured the utility of his photographs as didactic aids and imbued them with an entrancing directness.