The photograph is from the photo album "Types et Costumes de la Pologne", whose creator was professor of anthropology, physician and ethnographer Izydor Kopernicki (1825-1891). The exact time of the photo album's creation is unknown, however, based on its author's doctoral title on the cover and the dating of the earliest photographs in it, the time of its creation can be determined with high probability to be between 1880 and 1883. It must be remembered, however, that the photographs in the album are much earlier, as the oldest date from the 1860s . It was probably then that Kopernicki decided to collect photographic images of "folk types".
The photo album "Types et Costumes de la Pologne", together with his entire scientific legacy, was intended by Kopernicki for the Jagiellonian University; however, it was eventually added to the collection of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences in Krakow. From there, after more than twenty years, the photo album was transferred to the newly established Ethnographic Museum (1911), most probably through its founder, Seweryn Udziela (1857-1937), a member of the Academy.
The vast majority of the photographs collected and collated by Izydor Kopernicki in the photo album can be described as broadly defined ethnographic photography. The figures were carefully posed and the photographs were composed intentionally so as to give the viewer the impression of an objective registration of reality, capturing the "real" image. The author's overriding aim was to immortalise anthropological types (often with distinctive attributes), so it was necessary to some extent to universalise the representations and even to theatricalise them.
The photo album measures 31.8 cm in height, 48 cm in length and is bound in brown dyed leather with gilt embossed title letters: "Dr. I. KOPERNICKI/ Types et Costumes de la Pologne". The photo album contains thirty-two cards with 504 photographs, closed with two metal clasps. The hand-numbered boxes, arranged as eight on each of the sixty-three pages, contained photographs in the carte de visite format (a thin albumen print, usually measuring 6 x 10 cm and glued to a cardboard box), which had been popular since the mid 1850s . . The Jewish figures, to whom one-fifth of the entire album (104 photographs) is devoted, are arranged according to geographical criterion and bear captions in French: Juifs de Cracovie, de Léopol, divers endroits de Galicie, de Vilno, Varsovie, Berdyczew, Bohusław Gouv[ernora]t de Kiew, Kamieniec.
The author of the photograph is, as the studio vignette indicates, probably the most famous photographer in Krakow, Walery Rzewuski (1837-1888). Photography of an ethnographic nature was rather on the margins of his interests, and he was probably only involved in it for private commissions. However, there were a few indoor portrait photographs in the photo album – one in the section dedicated to the nobility and rich bourgeoisie, and two in its final, Jewish section. They were all made between 1868 and 1870 in the photographic studio at ul. Podwale 27B (27B Podwale Street) [then ul. Kolejowa (Kolejowa Street), now ul. Westerplatte (Westerplatte Street)].
The photograph is a seated portrait of Rabbi Dov Ber Meisels (1798–1870), taken one or two years before his death. The scholar is sitting at a round carved table, on a richly decorated chair. In his right hand he is holding a pen applied to the paper. He is dressed in an elegant silk or satin gaberdine tied at the waist. He is wearing a yarmulke on his head. The photograph was taken against a painted screen and a patterned carpet. A part of the ground-length curtain is visible on the left side of the frame.
Interestingly, W. Rzewuski's photograph of Rabbi Meisels is not accompanied by any description. However, it is difficult to suspect that such an important and distinguished figure for the country was unknown to Kopernicki. (For more on Rabbi Meisels, see, for example, Zofia Borzymińska, Rafał Żebrowski, Meisels Dow Ber, in Polski Słownik Judaistyczny, Warsaw 2003, vol. 2, pp. 125–126). Apparently, however, even the well-known personal data of recognisable characters were subordinate to the ethnicity that was central to the album's composition.