Kandelaar in trappenhuis, Neurenberg 1889

Anselm Schmitz’s photograph, "Kandelaar in trappenhuis, Neurenberg," captures a chandelier in a stairwell in Nuremberg, Germany, sometime in the late 19th century. Captured by Schmitz, the image is emblematic of the period’s fascination with ornamentation and grandeur. The space shown is adorned with sculptures, marbled walls, and elaborate ironwork, revealing an obsession with status and wealth. However, the figures, like the chandelier, are frozen, untouchable, and silent. How are we to consider the figures represented, and those that may have been exploited in service of such blatant displays of opulence? As viewers, we might question what this image hides: the labor, the social inequalities, and the lived realities that this opulence obscures. It serves as a document of a society grappling with new industrial wealth, yet also a reflection on the human cost of these transformations.