ROTTERDAM || Christa Zaat

Carl Emil Mögle (Dutch photographer) 1857 - 1934
Boerengat, Rotterdam, ca. 1900
platinum print
14.2 x 22.7 cm.
Special Collection of the University Library, Leiden, The Netherlands

Carl Emil Mögle, originally German, studied drawing at the Academy of Visual Art in Antwerp. In Dordrecht, wher he became a member of Pictura, he met the photographer J.G. Hameter. At the age of 25 he briefly operated the Leiden branche of Hameter's studio. In 1885 he began a studio of his own in Rotterdam. His multi-faceted oeuvre includes portraits, urban studies, interiors, factories and commercial premises, landscapes genre pictures and photographs of public events. In the period 1890-1900 his work was much esteemed as art photography and was frequently shown at exhibitions in The Hague and abroad. Mögle's photographs reflect aesthetic values of fidelity to nature and purity, rather akin with those of the English photographer Peter Henry Emerson. His choice of subjects, style and compositions were derived from painting, but he did not manipulate his photographs and generally worked with clearer platinum printing techniques ans geleatin silver prints. After 1900 appreciation for his work among the Pictorilists deceased, as they gravitated more in the direction of H.P. Robinson and devoted themselves more to drastic manipulation through graphic processes, combining negatives and laborious printing techniques.