Groep mannen in pak, onder wie één met een boek in de hand before 1900

Wilhelm Weimer made this photograph of a group of men, one holding a book, at an unknown date. Placed alongside a page from what looks like a newspaper, the image invites us to think about how a modern, commercial medium like print relates to formal portraiture. Weimer was working in Germany, a country where print was becoming increasingly important in public life, and where photography was being used in new ways by the media. This image seems to speak to that context. The men in the photograph are dressed in smart suits. They seem to represent a professional or educated class, perhaps even members of an institution. Yet the presence of the printed page on the left of the image suggests a world of commerce and mass media. Does Weimer mean for us to understand the relationship between the world of business and this educated elite? Is it a relationship of tension, or of mutual benefit? To understand this photograph better, we could research the history of print and photography in Germany, and the social changes that they reflected.