Penn Museum Image #152496
Working in an archives has its definite perks. One of those perks is working with the collections. Here at the Penn Museum, I particularly enjoy working with the photographic collections (hence my weekly blog contribution). This week, we had a Penn class in and the archivists were pulling images for them to view. I had the opportunity to delve in to a collection of images by the photographers Rudolf Lehnert (1878–1948) and Ernst Landrock (1880–1957). Lehnert and Landrock, as they were known, operated a photography studio in Tunisia from 1900 to 1914 and Cairo from 1914 to the 1920’s. This particular image of theirs is a photogravure of two dancers from northern Africa. Despite the age of their images, the Lehnert and Landrock photographs stand out with phenomenal depth and clarity. I count myself lucky to be able to work with treasures like these everyday.