Jim Nolan's Blog

Cabinet Cards: Dr. Harry Koenig & Augusta Siegesmund

 

Engagement pictures of Hildegard Paul's parents. My great-grandparents on my mother's mother's side. Click to enlarge.

Finnish Photographer Daniel Nyblin

I'm sorry for this tiny image, but you can see the full-size one of the photographer Daniel Nyblin here, at the website of the Finnish National Board of Antiquities. They have LOTS of his work, and it's pretty amazing. I wish I could show some of it here, but they want to change me 30 Euros for each one. But you can have a look for free at the site. There's a button at the top that let's you translate the page into English.

Cabinet Cards: Heinrich & Wilhelmine Behn Brehmer

The grandparents of Natalie Brehmer Paul. Heinrich (1800-1872) was a Senator and Bürgermeister in Lübeck, Germany. My great-great-great grandparents. That's pretty great.

Photographer Daniel Nyblin & Playwright Adolf Paul

A screenshot of what looks like a newspaper for theater and concerts from Helsinki in 1898. It's a photograph of my great grandfather Adolf, taken by Daniel Nyblin. It's from the Finnish National Library Digital Collection. You can see it better here, and enlarge it. I found out about it from Daniel Nyblin's descendent Marten Mickos. Marten writes:

"BTW, here is a great search engine in Finland:

http://digi.lib.helsinki.fi/sanomalehti/secure/query.html?language=en

 It has most Finnish newspapers from a long time ago digitized.

If you search for "Adolf Paul" you'll get a lot of hits. At that time, most newspapers were in Swedish so you may need somebody to help you translate the texts.

This page from 1898 is great:

http://digi.lib.helsinki.fi/sanomalehti/secure/showPage.html?conversationId=3&action=entryPage&id=853723&pageFrame_currPage=1

 

It shows a portrait of Adolf Paul (taken by Daniel Nyblin) with the caption (in an approximate translation): "We rush to present to the audience the portrait of the author Adolf Paul, whose play King Christan II has had such phenomenal success - success pyramidale."

 Incidentally, the page also shows an ad by Daniel Nyblin."

Thanks again, Martin. The design of these pages is fantastic.

Finland's Annie Leibovitz

I had long wondered about Daniel Nyblin, the photographer mentioned on this cabinet card of my great grandfather, Adolf Paul. Yesterday I received an email (see below) from Marten Mickos which explained everything. Nyblin did lots of celebrity portraits, like this one of Ibsen, and is considered the father of Finnish photography. Thanks for the note, Marten!

Jim,

I was leisurely googling for "Daniel Nyblin" and came on this blog posting of yours:

http://www.jimnolansblog.com/2011/01/finnish-cabinet-card-explained.html

Here is some further info: Daniel Nyblin was a Norwegian photographer in Finland. He was my maternal grandmother's maternal grandfather. He was married to Wera Pautow of Russian ancestry. The family became Swedish-speaking in Helsinki, which at the time was very much a Swedish-speaking city.

The card just lists his name and the city Helsingfors / Helsinki. The Nyblin photo studio was on the Fabianinkatu street, so that must be the word that is covered. The words in Russian is the same address written in cyrillic letters. At that time (i.e. from 1809 to 1917), Finland was a grand duchy in the Russian empire.

Daniel Nyblin was his time's most famous (and productive) photographer in Finland and he has at times been called the father of Finnish photography. There is plenty of information about him and his studio on the web.

He spent some time in the US and some of his brothers and/or cousins emigrated. I believe there are Nyblin ancestors in the Chicago area.

Not sure you needed all that info, but nevertheless hope it is useful or interesting to you.

Happy holidays and with kind regards,

Marten

Italian Cabinet Card

The woman on the right is Eleonora Salvatici, Isabella Bannerman's grandmother. To see more cabinet cards, go to the Categories section on the blog's left column, at the bottom. Click on "cabinet cards."

German Cabinet Card, 1914

My great-uncle, Robert Koenig, an officer in the German Navy. Robert's ship was torpedoed toward the end of WWI and he died. The photo is pasted onto the card, not laminated. To see cabinet cards of Harry and his then fiancee Auguste Seigesmund, click here.

Jinan, China Cabinet Card, circa 1904

A cabinet card from approximately 1904 when my great-grandfather Harry Koenig was a German naval surgeon in Tsingtau, China. The photo is pasted onto the card, instead of laminated onto it. I asked a neighbor and China expert, Professor Richard Belsky of Hunter College, where he thought it was. Rick replied:

"Very interesting. I think your photo must be of Jinan, the provincial capital of Shandong. Tsingdao itself didn't have a wall, and the walls in the picture are very impressive city walls, such as one would expect from a major administrative center like a provincial capital. The wall doesn't exist anymore, most city walls in China were torn down in the years since unfortunately. It is hard to tell but it seems that the photo shows the area in the foreground flooding, and I know the Jinan moat did flood at times.  German influence was great in Jinan, there was a German concession there, and the Germans built a railroad from Tsingtao to Jinan (completed in 1904), so it makes sense that your great-grandfather would have spent time been there."

"Here are some photos of Jinan for comparison. The first two are different shots of the Jinan wall - note the water in the foreground of the first one."

 

Adolf Paul, Stylin'

 
My great-grandfather, as a young man in Finland and later in Germany.

Cabinet Card #2: Leo & Ellen Wiedersheim-Paul

Husband and wife Leo and Ellen Wiedersheim-Paul. Leo was one of Adolf Paul's seven brothers. They lived with Leo's brother Oscar at Stråken, Sweden, where my mother was sent from Berlin in 1943. Mom remembers Leo and Ellen and their daughter Karin fondly.