605
and offi cial occasions. There is no record of Graf/Graff
after these years.
Rolf Sachsse
GRAFF, PHILIPP (1814–1851)
Berlin daguerreotypist
Philipp Graff, born 1814 in Berlin, was like his father
Philipp Graff senior, an optician. Early on, he was en-
gaged in the construction of photographic apparatus, and
in 1840, he began daguerreotyping opening a portrait
studio, in which he also received commissions from
the Prussian royal family, in 1843. Graff was famous
for his painted city views, which he used as a backdrop
and was one of the fi rst daguerreotypists to advertise by
putting photographs in his shop window instead of, in
the usual way, by advertising in the papers. He trained
many photographers, of whom the best known was
Richard Scholz. Graff is well known for his Graffsche
Mischung [Graff’s mixture]—a method to heighten the
sensitivity of the plates which was very popular. After
Graffs death on 7 March 1851 his widow continued
the business until it was taken over by August Beer in
1854 who then employed Leopold Ahrendts. Most of
his daguerreotypes are kept in the Kupferstichkabinett
Dresden, the Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin and the Mu-
seum Ludwig/Agfa Photo-Historama Cologne.
Stefanie Klamm
GRAHAM, JAMES (1806–1869)
Scottish itinerant photographer
James Graham’s photography provides a more accurate
account of the personal journey of the traveller of that
time than any of the bought 19th Century albumen
prints, purchased as souvenirs, because they are un-
hindered by notions of commercial, and possibly even
artistic success. They can be contrasted with the new
commercial travel photograph, the albumen print, which
depicted known stage sets for a knowing public; rather,
Graham’s images are often private and personal. Yet
while they provide a unique document of precise mo-
ments, even to the extent of tracing a walk through the
landscape on a particular day, they intriguingly do not
refl ect the life and harrowing times that Graham lived
through and took part in, especially in Jerusalem. They
are, instead, desired realities. He was to ignore the re-
markable detail embedded in his waxed paper negatives
in favour of tone, characterised by a deep, rich yellow
or brown which produced a brooding melancholy, as
befi tted this argumentative and principled Scot. They
included some of the earliest photographs of Jerusalem
and the Holy Land
James Graham (1806–1869) was the sixth and young-
est son of Alexander Graham of Lymekilns and Fereneze
in Scotland and Margaret, daughter of John Cochrane,
banker. He was the younger brother of Elizabeth and
Agnes, and he succeeded to part of the family estate near
Barrhead, Renfrewshire, after the death of his eldest
brother Patrick Graham Barns (1793–1867). Graham
remained a bachelor and none of the family appears
to have had any issue. After the failure and loss of his
money as a banker, perhaps associated with the notori-
ous and long running collapse of the Western Bank of
Glasgow which fi nally closed in 1857, Graham took up
a new career as a lay missionary. He became the Lay
Secretary of the London Society for the Promotion of
Christianity amongst the Jews (The London Jews Soci-
ety) and joined the Mission in Jerusalem in 1853, aged- He stayed 5 years and departed in 1857.
Elizabeth Finn (1825–1921) and her husband James
Finn (1806–1872), British Consul in Jerusalem (1846–
1863), founded the Jerusalem Literary Society in 1849
where the ‘only subject excluded was religious contro-
versy.’ This Society no doubt helped to bring about the
foundation in London of the Palestine Exploration Fund
in 1865 with the support of the Archbishop of York and
the Dean of Westminster, ‘for the purpose of investigat-
ing the archaeology, geography, geology and natural
history of the Holy Land.’ The aim was to ‘illustrate
the Bible,’ that is, obtain documentary evidences of
the scriptures. Elizabeth Finn contributed frequently to
the Palestine Exploration Fund’s publications between
1869 and 1892 and later donated to them her collection
of photographs, which included a substantial collection
by James Graham. She had been shown the use of the
calotype by the Rev. George W. Bridges (1788–1863)
on his visit to the Holy Land in 1850 and thought it
would be a useful addition to fund-raising by selling
photographs to itinerant Christian travellers in the Holy
Land and also sending them back to Britain. Graham
took up calotype photography just before his arrival in
Jerusalem in order to aid this mission work. A Jewish
convert from the American Baptist Church, Mendel John
Diness (1827–1900), became his helper and pupil, and
Graham subsequently sold Mrs Finn’s unused camera
equipment to him. Thus James Graham reputedly be-
came the fi rst resident photographer in Jerusalem and
Mendel Diness became the fi rst indigenous Jewish
photographer in Palestine, although he may have also
helped in that capacity the Rev. James Turner Barclay,
physician and also photographer, who founded the
American Christian Mission in Jerusalem in 1851 and
employed the converted Diness as his translator. Barclay
had an ‘excellent French photographic apparatus’ and
could have been photography before Graham’s arrival.
Diness was to practice photography after Graham left,