Objects

Portrait photograph of the Jewish couple, the Natels

The object consists of two portraits placed next to each other on a single glass plate. It originates from the photographic studio of Antoni Pawlikowski in Krakow, which operated from 1906 to 1925 on ul. Sławkowska (Sławkowska Street) . The archival collections of the Ethnographic Museum in Krakow contain over thirty glass plates by this author. The photographs of the Jewish couple, the Natels, were likely taken in 1920.

On the left there is a portrait of an elderly religious Jew with a long, grey beard and wire-rimmed glasses. The man is dressed in a traditional long, single-breasted coat, known as a gaberdine (Yiddish: kapote), fastened to the left side. The photograph was taken from the left three-quarter view and in a waist-length shot. The man is depicted sitting against a painted screen.

On the right there is a portrait of a Jewish woman. The woman has dark hair (likely a wig) tied at the back and is dressed modestly according to tzniut rules (Hebrew: cni’ut) – she is wearing a white blouse with a lace collar fastened with dark buttons, decorated at the neck, on the collar line, with a small velvet ribbon (bow tie?). She is also wearing a dark, smooth, probably silk, coat (kaftan) without fastening. The photograph was taken from the left three-quarter view and in a waist-length shot. The woman is shown seated, against a painted screen.

Below each photo there is a handwritten description: "Natel" and serial number of another glass plate ("13,026," "13,025"). The photograph likely depicts a couple from Krakow, a city that was home to over 40,000 Jews at that time. The Natel family (sometimes spelled "Nattel") was fairly well represented in the interwar period, making it difficult nowadays to precisely identify the exact persons depicted without additional sources of information.

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Information about the object
Author / creator
Pawlikowski, Antoni (1862-1925)
Object type
photography
Time of creation / dating
1st quarter of the 20th century
Place of creation
Kraków (Małopolskie Province)
Technique
gelatin negative
Material
glass
Keywords
Copyrights status
the object is not protected by copyright law
Owner
Seweryn Udziela Etnographical Museum in Kraków
Identification number
V/1367/S MEK