Vier jagers rond een tafel, een vrouw in de deuropening 1879

This is a photograph by Sophus Williams of Berlin from 1879. We see four hunters around a table with a woman in the doorway. It is titled 'Hunters Tales'. Sophus Williams produced 'genre-bilder nach dem leben', genre pictures from life. This kind of photography captured scenes of everyday life and was used to create a sense of realism. Photography, as a medium, was a tool for representing the world in an objective way but this was not straightforward. The scene is likely staged, playing to popular stereotypes of the leisured classes in Germany. The antlers above the door and their leather boots are visual codes of the hunt as a lifestyle. To get a better understanding of this photograph, one might look at the history of leisure and class in nineteenth-century Germany. In the German Empire, hunting was closely associated with the aristocracy and wealthy landowners, with exclusive hunting rights acting as a visible symbol of social status. By examining sources from the period, we can understand the social norms of the time and how this image may have reflected or challenged them.