A MUSICAL PHOTO ALBUM FROM THE LATE 19TH CENTURY
As we approach the end of the year, the Treasure of the Month exhibition series also reflects on this special season. In November we present a magical object: a musical photo album that evokes the cosy atmosphere of late 19th-century bourgeois life in connection with the joint exhibition Duet: Music and Photography by the Hungarian National Museum and the House of Music Hungary.
In December, the musical photo album symbolises the preparations for Advent, the shared joy of the festive season, and family traditions. Thus, in the final month of the year, the harmony of past and present intertwines with the delight of music and togetherness, as this unique object offered its users both visual and auditory pleasure.
Musical photo album purchased in the shop of the Ármin Sternberg and Brother Musical Instrument Factory. Budapest, 1892; Hungarian National Museum, photo by Iván Jaksity
This late-19th-century photo album is everything but ordinary. While looking at the pictures, the melody of The Blue Danube Waltz, composed in 1866 by Johann Strauss the Younger, plays from its inside. The wind-up musical mechanism, concealed in the box-like rear section of the artefact, is set in motion when the album is opened and the clasp is moved into a horizontal position.
The album was purchased in the shop of the Ármin Sternberg and Brother Musical Instrument Factory in Budapest. The firm’s name appears on a metal plate riveted to the back cover. Ármin Sternberg opened his shop at 36 Kerepesi Street (renamed Rákóczi Street after 1906) in 1884. The family business dealt with the repair, sale, and manufacture of a wide variety of musical instruments, and also offered its customers numerous decorative and functional musical objects.
Second and third pages of the musical photo album. Hungarian National Museum, photo by Iván Jaksity
The object represents the union of two marvellous and complex human inventions, music and photography. The musical mechanism of the album still works today, and the small key required to wind it has also survived. Thus, the melody of The Blue Danube Waltz and the photographs in the compilation mutually reinforce each other to evoke the Gemütlichkeit, the homely atmosphere cherished by the loyal subjects of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy at the end of the 19th century.
The current Artefact of the Month exhibition in the Széchényi Hall of the Hungarian National Museum can be visited with a ticket for the permanent exhibition until 4 January 2026.
The Duet: Photography and Music panel exhibition is on display in the Museum Garden and the House of Music, Hungary until 7 December 2025.
