[Untitled Photograph Album Documenting Production Facilities of Henkell Trocken]

Photographer(s) and compiler uncredited. Large album format (30 x 23.5 cm.), 23 leaves (19 with black-&-white photographs). Captions in English.Collection of photographs dating, variously, from the middle years of the last century, assembled evidently for an English-speaking audience, and providing an overview of the cellar, maturation monitoring, and bottling operations of the German sparkling wine specialist Henkell & Co. Famously known as the Schloß (palace), the complex on view was built in the Wiesbaden suburb of Biebrich between 1907 and 1909 by the architect Paul Bonatz (1877-1956) to the specifications of Otto Henkell (1869-1929). Henkel & Co. more than weathered World War II. It does not appear that the family sought ties with the National Socialists, but they didn't have to. Otto's daughter Anna Elisabeth (Annalies) (1896-1973) married the (future) NS foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, who became a principal investor in the firm. It is worth remembering that Germans have always appreciated sparkling wine, and a great deal of it was drunk in the domestic market during war time, especially after the regime abolished the tax on Deutscher Sekt and Schaumwein. In 1952, Annalies petitioned for her son Rudolf to regain partial control of the company, and the West German courts ruled in their favor. Henkell & Co. continued to produce Henkell Trocken under its own name until the sale of the winery in 1986. Little is ascertainable regarding the origins of the album. Otto Henkel--the elder Otto's nephew, son of his brother Karl--is present in the portrait collection of company managers on the final leaf of photographs, but his presence spans many years. The vintage labels have not yet been applied to bottles shown in a production line on photograph fifteen. Possibly automobiles of ca. 1950--including a white roadster--are depicted in an aerial photograph of the Schloß, though sufficient details are undiscernable. And a Bizerbo scale shown in the seventeenth photograph was no longer maufactured by 1951, though of course it may have been in use well before being captured by the photographer. Unique; well-mounted and artful arrangement of professional images celebrating a revered German wine house, very likely as it looked before, during, and immediately after the Second World War. Buff paper age-toned. Brown paper wrappers, lightly worn, sewn with a brown cord; head and foot of spine lightly chipped. [Helmut Arntz. Für ihre Probe deutscher Sekt. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1979; Fritz von Ostini. Der Prachtbau der Sektkellerei Henkell & Co. erbaut von Paul Bonatz mit Haus Henkell in Wiesbaden. Darmstadt: Koch, 1920; Michael Weisser. Deutsche Reklame: 100 Jahre Werbung 1870-1970. Munich: Edition Deutsche Reklame, 1985. (includes chapter on Henkell & Co.'s advertising)]. (Inventory #: 4971)