This wooden box covered in silk is our thing of the month for November.
It was acquired for the museum’s collection with its entire content: photographs and documents of the extended family Cooper/Mills/Cotterell, who lived in England in the Victorian 19th century. The estate is an example of typical practices of collecting and structuring family memorabilia, inter alia ambrotypes, mourning jewellery with a picture of the deceased family member, numerous letters and an extensive handwritten family tree. Today, private photo archives are mostly digital and are stored on hard drives, smart phones, on social media and in the cloud.
The estate is on display in the current special exhibition FOTO | ALBUM. Private and Anonymouse Photography from the Collection of the Werkbundarchiv – Museum der Dinge.
