Portrett, 1890-tallet

Nicola Perscheid was a German photographer. He is primarily known for his artistic portrait photography. He developed the "Perscheid lens", a soft focus lens for large format portrait photography. At the age of 15, he began an apprenticeship as a photographer. Subsequently, Perscheid earned his living as an itinerant photographer. In Klagenfurt in Austria he finally found a permanent position and in 1887, he became a member of the Photographic Society of Vienna. In 1889, he moved to Dresden, where he initially worked in the studio of Wilhelm Höffert (1832–1901), a well-known studio in Germany at that time, before opening his own studio in Görlitz in 1891. The next year he was appointed court photographer at the court of Albert, King of Saxony and in 1894, Perscheid moved to Leipzig. Perscheid had his first publication of an image of his in a renowned photography magazine in 1897, and subsequently participated in many exhibitions and also had contacts with artist Max Klinger. As an established and well-known photographer, he moved in 1905 to Berlin. There, he experimented with early techniques for colour photography, without much success, and when his assistant Arthur Benda left him in 1907, Perscheid gave up these experiments altogether. His portraits, however, won him several important prizes, but apparently were not an economic success: he sold his studio in 1912. Percheid had several students who would later become renowned photographers themselves.