About This Image

On the mount, signature "G. Völkerling. Dessau." handwritten in ink (under the right portion of image). On a label at the bottom right, "Dessauer Eichen. Nr." printed and following "51" handwritten in ink. On a label at the bottom left, "G. Völkering in Dessau/Maler und Hof-Photograph./Preis Medaille/Berlin/1865" and medallions printed on either side of the text. Label applied well after the print was made.

Gustav Völkerling (1810-1876), a skilled German artist based in Dessau during the mid-19th century, transitioned from portrait painting to photography in 1857.

He participated in the art exhibitions of the Berlin Academy. Among the works he showed were portraits in oils and chalks (among others, portraits of Prince Eduard von Sachsen-Weimar and of Crown Prince Friedrich von Anhalt). Völkerling had likely studied at the Berlin Academy under the famous Berlin Court portraitist Franz Krueger.

In 1844 the artist (as a portrait painter) came to Dessau, center of Duchy Anhalt. In this town he painted numerous citizens' portraits in oils or chalks.

Following the development of the then new art of photography, Völkerling quickly learned how to take paper photographs, becoming the first Court photographer ever in this German province. His first-known photographs are dated from 1847. He worked in both salt and albumen paper prints, using glass plates for his negatives.

Since he photographed with the eyes of a painter, his pictures are far above the average for the works made in Anhalt and Dessau, and even France, at the time. In the years that followed, he left numerous landscape and city photographs of Dessau. He received extensive orders and commissions from Duke Leopold IV. This enabled him to purchase a carriage that was equipped with a kind of mobile photo laboratory. Völkerling died in Dessau in 1876.

He was renowned for integrating painterly methods into his photographic work, earning recognition for the artistic quality of his depictions of Dessau's landscapes and daily life. He received several medals for his work, including one in 1865 from a Berlin exhibition.

His work is reminiscent of Gustave Le Gray's early landscape photography, but Völkerling, unlike Le Gray, often included people for scale in his photographs.

Völkerling's photographs were included in 2019 in the exhibition "Nature as Art" at the Städtische Galerie in Lenbachhaus, part of the Munich Municipal Museum. Other landscape photographers in the exhibition included—not surprisingly--Georg Maria Eckert, Gustave Le Gray and Constant Alexandre Famin.

Besides the Munich Museum, his work is also in the collections of the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts and the Museum Barberini.

Most U.S. domestic Fed Ex ground shipping (Media Mail for books) is free of charge except for larger and heavier items, or unless the buyer wants express shipping (email us your requests for the latter). International shipping and insurance costs will be added to the price and must be paid for by the buyer. Pennsylvania buyers must pay appropriate local sales tax. International clients are responsible for their local customs duties and taxes, which will be charged by Fed Ex, which will contact the client prior to delivery.