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(1819–1869): photographies d’art et d’architecture [Edmond
Fierlants (1819–1869): Photographs of Art and Architecture],
Brussels: Crédit Communal, 1988 (includes a facsimile
reprint of Catalogue des œuvres publiées par la Société
royale belge de photographie Ed. Fierlants et Cie, Ixelles:
L. Truyts, 1865).
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Directory of Photographers in Belgium 1839–1905, Antwerp
and Rotterdam: Uitgeverij C. de Vries-Brouwers, 1997.
Sosson, Jean-Pierre, “Les primitifs fl amands de Bruges et les
premiers albums de reproduction photographiques” [Flem-
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en Belgique [Contributions to a History of Photography in
Belgium], Charleroi: Musée de la Photographie, 1993.
FINLAND
Advance reports in Swedish-language newspapers en-
sured that a single daguerreotype would be a sensation
when displayed in Turku, and Helsinki, Finland, in the
New Year of 1840. The local doctor of Turku, Henrik
Cajander (1804–1848), acquired details of the process
while travelling in France, and produced Finland’s fi rst
photographic image on his return in 1842. Thereafter,
photography was infl uenced by political and economic
aspirations as Finland sought independence from Russia,
of which it remained a province until 1917.
The fi rst notable Finn was a bookbinder, Fredrik
Rehnström, who was born in Mäntyharju and in 1844,
established a business based on skills learned in St Pe-
tersburg. For seven years, he travelled the country as an
itinerant photographer offering daguerreotype portraits,
which were popular because he photographed his cus-
tomers in familiar locations, (rather than studio settings).
On retirement, Rehnström moved to St Petersburg.
Other early photographers were foreigners, attracted
by the market of Finland, but who introduced important
skills. Two Estonians, Beno Lipschütz and Baptist Tensi
offered daguerreotypes in Helsinki, Turku and Viipuri in
1848, and three years later a German, Friedrich Mebius,
introduced the calotype to Helsinki. Two Danes ran
successful studios for many years—Petter Christoffer
Liebert began in 1842, and lasted for over twenty years,
whereas countryman Charles Riis, took over the thriving
business of Karl Eugen Hoffers when the latter returned
to Prussia in 1871.
Hoffers had been in competition with Carl Adolph
Hårdh of Sweden since 1860. Both men ran successful
businesses in Helsinki and had established reputations,
especially when working out of doors. Hårdh died in
1875 and a Swedish colleague, Fritz Hjertzell, ran the
studio on behalf of his widow (whom he later mar-
ried).
During the 1860s, famine was eradicated from Fin-
land and improved prosperity coincided with a phase in
which the carte-de-visite became popular. The system
had been introduced by the Borchardt brothers of St
Petersburg, who launched the service in Helsinki by
asking high prices, but with improved incomes, Finnish
people enjoyed patronising the professional studios. An
attraction of the carte-de-visite was the twelve copies
that were provided at one sitting; this had initiated an
enthusiasm for collecting portraits to create albums of
families. Simultaneously, the working classes began to
have a say in running the country and to many, the pos-
session of a self-portrait by the economical ferrotype
process symbolised power and ownership.
In 1859 the newspaper Wiborg reported that a mer-
chant’s widow, Caroline Becker, had opened a portrait
studio in Viipuri, and in the same year, Hedvig Kep-
pler, the clockmaker’s daughter, advertised in the Åbo
Underrättelser newspaper to announce her studio in
Turku. Trained in St Petersburg in the ambrotype proc-
ess, she traded during the summer of 1860, “until the
waters freeze.” When she married a baker, Carl Fredrik
Löfman, the couple moved to Salo and she terminated
her photographic career.
Only large towns, such as Helsinki, Turku, Viipuri
and Oulu (in the north), were able to support a business
but the introduction of the cabinet photograph allowed
studios to promote an alternative to the increasingly
popular carte-de-visite. An apprentice scheme coped
with the demand for assistants, many of whom were
engaged to colour photographs by hand.
A Norwegian influenced Helsinki photographic
circles when he set up his studio in the capital in the
summer of 1877. Nineteen-year-old Daniel Nyblin had
studied in Oslo and the United States, and had been run-
ning Riis’s studio for two years. He quickly established a
reputation for attractive poses which made use of studio
accessories. For the next ten years, he photographed
academics, civil servants, tradesmen, artists, citizens,
artisans and the gentry, as well as many of the visitors
passing through Helsinki en route to and from St Pe-
tersburg, and his cabinet-sized portraits of well-known
people were successfully sold to the public. His cousin
Georg enhanced the Nyblin reputation by opening a
studio in Turku in May 1885.
Daniel Nyblin also pioneered the marketing of al-
bums of photographs featuring Finnish life. Some of
the photographs were reproduced from paintings, others
were coloured by hand, and the sets proved to be popular
in remote areas. Whilst travelling in Europe, Nyblin had
become aware of the value of exhibitions and worked
hard to unite amateur and professional photographers
within the Amateur Photographic Club of Helsinki,