G

565

GAENSLY, WILHELM (GUILHERME)

(1843–1928)
Swiss-born Brazilian photographer

One of Brazil’s most renowned 19th-century land-
scape photographers, Wilhelm Gaensly was born in
Switzerland on September 1, 1843, in the evangelical
community of Felben-Wellhausen. In 1848, his mother,
Anna Barbara Kym Gaensly, took young Wilhelm and
his two brothers to join their father, Jacob Heinrich
Gaensly, in Salvador, Bahia, in the Brazilian Northeast.
Like other Swiss immigrants, they attended the Brit-
ish Church, the fi rst Protestant church in Bahia, which
Gaensly later photographed, providing a precious re-
cord of that historic building, which was demolished
in 1975. Known professionally as Guilherme Gaensly,
he started his career as a teenager, working as Albert
Henschel’s assistant at “Photographia Alemã” (German
Photography). In 1871, he formed a partnership with
Waldemar Lange and Joseph Schleier (1827–1903),
a German national with a Swiss Protestant wife. The
fi rm was originally called “Maison Gaensly & Lange,”
and its staff included the German photographer Karl
Heinrich Gutzlaff, who had previously worked with
Henschel and Schleier. From that time on, Gaensly
enjoyed a steady rise to success and acclaim as a
professional photographer. In 1877, the year he won
three gold medals from the Imperial Liceu de Artes e
Ofícios (a vocational school founded in 1872) and the
Academia de Artes, Gaensly founded his own business
at No. 1, Ladeira de São Bento, a prestigious address in
the city center. Called “Photographia do Commercio”
(Commercial District Photography), its advertisements
declared that the studio owned “the biggest collection
of views of Bahia, carte-de-visites, Imperial prints,
convex prints and larger portraits.” In 1881, he partici-
pated in the Brazilian National Library’s “Exposição

de História do Brasil” (“Brazilian History Exhibition”)

in Rio de Janeiro (his name appears next to Schleier’s

on some of the photographs shown there). He also ex-

panded his business that year, opening a larger studio

called “Photographia Premiada de Guilherme Gaensly”

(Guilherme Gaensly’s Award-Winning Photography) at

No. 92, Largo do Theatro (now Praça Castro Alves).

His gold medals are proudly illustrated on the backs of

his cartes-de-visite, which also proclaim that his studio

produced “Reproductions and Enlargements with Full

Quality—Plates Kept for Reproductions.” His services

ranged from portraits to commissioned work, such as

the “Álbum da Estrada de Ferro Central de Alagoas,

Maceió e Vila Imperatriz” on the Central Railway in

the province of Alagoas (1882–1884). All of his known

works are albumen prints.

In 1882, Gaensly entered into a creatively productive

and enduring partnership with his former assistant and

future brother-in-law, Rudolf Friedrich Franz (Rodolpho

Frederico Francisco) Lindemann, and the fi rm changed

its name to “Gaensly & Lindemann.” (Little is known

about Lindemann. He was born in Germany ca. 1852

and in 1870 he contributed photographs to illustrate the

entry on Brazil in Émile Levasseur’s La Grande Ency-

clopédie.) In 1894, Gaensly moved to São Paulo and

opened a branch on Rua XV de Novembro, a famous

street in the city center, leaving Lindemann to run the

Bahia studio. For over 20 years, Gaensly worked for the

São Paulo Tramway Light and Power Company (now

Eletropaulo) and government agencies, including the

Department of Agriculture. His partnership with Linde-

mann ended in around 1900, when Gaensly changed his

fi rm’s name to “Photographia Gaensly,” also advertised

as “Photographia Guilherme Gaensly.”

In Bahia, Gaensly photographed numerous views

of the outskirts of Salvador that are remarkable for

their beauty, including fi shermen’s huts and canoes in