Figure 1.--This early Romanian CDVws date to the 1880s by the dealer. We suspect the 1870s is more likely, even the late-60s. The sharp corners help to date it. We are not sure what the partilly flaked out mounting at the top was all about. It looks to be a boy from a well-to-do family dressing up in a folk outfit. Such styles were still very common in the coutry side. The studio was K.F. Zipser in Bucharest. We think that is a German name. A lot of the early Romanian photographers were Germans. Notice the city the studio is located in is not on the front of the card. We do not yet know how common that was in Romania. A readerwrites, "The Zipser Germans who settled several areas in what is now Romania, Slovakia and Hungary were also called Carpathian Germans. They worked not ony as farmers but also as craftsmen and miners. In spite of forced Magyarizations they kept speaking a German dialect (spoken since the 13th century). After World War II most of them were deported to Austria and Germany by the Romnians or sent to Siberia by the Soviets.

As in other countries we notice Romanian CDVs and cabinet cards in the 19th century. We do not note the earlier formats like Daguerreotypes and Ambrotypes. There may have been some, but they were certainly not very common. Commnercial photography was developed by researchers in a small number of countries (primarily Britain and France) annd then spread to other countries like Romania. Thus by the time Dags and Ambros reached Romania, CDVs apeeared and quickly prevailed because of their many advntages and lower costs. As was common in Europe, CDVs continued to be popular in Romania longer than was the case in America. So far the earlies CDV we have found dates to the 1870. The mounts are similar to those we see in Western Europe. The CDV here is a good example (figure 1). We suspect that they are earlier ones, but our 19th century Rimanian archive here is very limited. The cabinet card on the previous page is a good exmple of a cabinet card. This look one look to date to the turn-of-the 20th century. The mount styles look similar to those we see in America and Western Europe. we suspect that the dating conventions are also the same, but do not have a large enough archive to substantiate this.

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Created: 11:29 AM 12/10/2015
Last updated: 11:29 AM 12/10/2015