Many different people came to the studio. They were photographed against a dark or light background.
Photography was invented in 1839, and it became publicly known in Denmark in the 1840s, when the first daguerreotypists, as they were called, produced unique portraits on metal plates. However, photography first had a real breakthrough with the so-called business card photography, small portraits pasted on cardboard sheets, which were no more expensive than most people could afford. From the 1860s, it created an enormous market for photographers, and studios were established all over the country.
Mrs. Fabricius de Tengnagel wearing arctic fox and hat.
Photo: Laurberg og Gad
Laurberg and Gad's studio was located at a fashionable address in the inner city. Not everyone and anyone could be portrayed there. Their customers were in the upper social classes, and both colonels and directors walked through the door. They also photographed a large number of artists, writers and scientists.
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Laurberg and Gad photographed the artist J.F. Willumsen in his home.
Photo: Laurberg og Gad
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Author Agnes Henningsen wearing big ego and ditto hat.
Photo: Laurberg og Gad
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The painter and ceramist Svend Hammershøi came to Kähler's pottery workshop in 1893.
Photo: Laurberg og Gad
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The author Karin Michaëlis had a breakthrough in 1902 with the diary novel "Barnet".
Photo: Laurberg og Gad
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Juliette Willumsen was a ceramicist and exhibited faience figures at the Free Exhibition in 1897.
Photo: Laurberg og Gad
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The painter Emilie Mundt photographed with her brothers.
Photo: Laurberg og Gad
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The painter Johanne Frimodt, who exhibited at the Women's Exhibition in 1895.
Photo: Laurberg og Gad
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The painter Marie Luplau, who formed a couple with Emilie Mundt.
Photo: Laurberg og Gad
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The author Ellen Reumert.
Photo: Laurberg og Gad
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Artists and photographers exhibited all over the world. The painter Elise Konstantin-Hansen was represented at the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893.
Photo: Laurberg og Gad
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The painter Bertha Wegmann was educated in Italy, Germany and France and only settled late in Denmark.
Photo: Laurberg og Gad
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The dark background makes the sculptress Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen stand out clearly in her light work shirt.
Photo: Laurberg og Gad
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The writer Sophie Breum lived together with the painter Anna E. Munch. The couple was called "Pen and brush".
Photo: Laurberg og Gad
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The Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1920 went to the physiologist and zoologist August Krogh.
Photo: Laurberg og Gad
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A young Niels Bohr, who had already made a name for himself in atomic physics.
Photo: Laurberg og Gad
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In 1893, Denmark got its first female dr. phil., Anna Hude.
Photo: Laurberg og Gad
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Alfred Lehmann was a psychologist and co-founded the Society for Psychical Research.
Photo: Laurberg og Gad
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There is hardly a Copenhagen home that does not have pictures hanging or standing in their living rooms with the well-known signature.
Berlingske Tidende, May 2, 1920.
Some of the studios that existed in the city were almost set up like theatres. The person to be photographed stood on a small stage with a backdrop of landscape painting, perhaps up against a bench or a birch fence or a papier-mâché stone. Inside the densely built-up Copenhagen, one could easily be portrayed by a forest lake. Many considered this kind of scenery to be "bad taste", and Laurberg and Gad had a more minimalist style.
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The business card photograph was, as the name suggests, given to friends and acquaintances.
Photo: Laurberg og Gad
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Mrs. Narischime and son.
Photo: Laurberg og Gad
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The money changer Otto Ruben Henriques photographed against the characteristic dark background.
Photo: Laurberg og Gad
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Woman on light background.
Photo: Laurberg og Gad
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Mr. Gudme in work clothes.
Photo: Laurberg og Gad
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Colonel Muus poses in fur with jewellery by artificial brickwork, a rarity in Laurberg and Gad's portraits.
Photo: Laurberg og Gad
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Children of the Grevenkop-Castenskjold family in costume.
Photo: Laurberg og Gad
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Franziska Gad was contemporaneously praised for her skills as a children's photographer. Here it is the large Westenholtz family that has been portrayed.
Photo: Laurberg og Gad
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In the negative archive, there are two consistent types of portraits, some with light and others with dark backgrounds. The dark background shifts and reveals itself in this image to actually be a cloudy sky. It gives a calmness to the face. There are not such great contrasts in Laurberg and Gad's photographs as in the contemporary Peter Elfelt's. There are more nuances and therefore also a "softer expression".
The dark background shifts and reveals itself in this image to actually be a cloudy sky.
Royal Danish Library has a collection of 4,400 negatives by Julie Laurberg and Franziska Gad. It has been digitised and made available in Digital collections. Here you can also find many paper images, both portraits and architectural images, from Laurberg and Gad's studio.
