Photographs from the studio and publishing house August Mencke & Co, Wandsbek near Hamburg

• cardboard, around 1880, width: 50.0 cm

In the late 19th century Mencke and his employees created, in only a few years, numerous photographs of castles and stately homes across Germany, and also of other prominent buildings in cities and in the countryside. The images were created using the contact process and match the formats of the negatives. They were sold individually or in folders. Mecklenburg appears to have been a preferred place for taking the photographs.

In addition to the Mecklenburg Foundation, the main Schwerin state archive also has a lot of photographs from A. Mencke & Co. At the start of the 21^st century, the foundation acquired around 250 photographs from private owners, which were apparently retrieved from the attic of a Mecklenburg vicarage. The images are a significant source for the history of rural life in the late 19th century.