Historical photo gallery

Historical photo gallery

The Historical Photographic Collection of the Sopron Museum is the most important collection of photographs of Sopron and its surroundings, but it is also considered to be a nationally significant collection. Its status is primarily enhanced by the artists who are outstanding personalities in the history of Hungarian photography. Mihály Rupprecht, Ferenc Csík, Károly Diebold, Andor Angyalffy, Jenő Sárkány ... just a few of the artists whose names are known in Hungary, but let us not forget the photographers who are well known in Sopron and whose work has left us something lasting in some form or other. Examples include Vilmos Jéhnos, whose stereophotographs evoke turn-of-the-century Sopron, or Ármin Schäffer, whose series of pictures known to Sopron residents as the People's Vote album is also part of the collection. The list is of course extremely incomplete, since looking back over the last 100 years we can say that all publications presenting the history of Sopron and its surroundings have used and still use almost exclusively pictures from this collection as illustrations!

Dr. Ottó Domonkos: Drying corn willow (Kapuvár, 1952) - Sopron MuseumThe collection, launched in 1953, was started by art historian Endre Csatkai, ethnographer Ottó Domonkos and restorer-photographer Attila Adorján. The first item of the inventory book is a 6X6 cm photographic negative taken by Dr. Ottó Domonkos on 9 September 1952, showing corn bundles being dried in Kapuvár. Of course, the predecessor institutions of the Sopron Museum also had photographs before, but before the collection was started, they were mainly stored in the Local History Collection, including the oldest photograph in the Sopron Museum's possession, which shows Ágoston Tóth of Felsőszopor with family members in 1846 in a daguerreotype.

The photo collection includes images taken for documentary, scientific, artistic... etc. purposes, depicting Sopron and its surroundings. With an inventory of more than 70,000 items, we can currently only estimate that there are around 150,000 images. In 2006, our museum also launched a digital photo archive, which now contains thousands of photos of the past, which is close to our time.

The collection can be searched by appointment (e-mail, telephone) in accordance with the research regulations, which are also available on the website.