Joseph Johann Knippenberg Tourist highlights of the Middle Rhine region

Joseph Johann Knippenberg — Tourist highlights of the Middle Rhine region in the 1930s from the Rheinisches Bildarchiv of the city of Cologne The bundle Joseph Johann Knippenberg comprises 346 glass negatives in the format 18 x 24 centimeters and about 50 large-format prints with motifs from the Middle and Lower Rhine. The estate came into possession of the Rheinische Bildarchiv Cologne in 2018 as a gift from his grandson Hans-Joseph Madest. The positives were provided on loan and digitised in order to be available together with the negatives of the use and exploration of this photographic stock. In Knippenberg’s hometown Rees, in addition to classic city views and pictures of the Rhine bank, a series about the Salm Fishing on the Lower Rhine was created. They are reproduced in the 1988 book by Werner Böcking in Kleve: That’s how they fished on the Lower Rhine. After moving to Bacharach in 1935, photographs of the tourist highlights of the Middle Rhine region were made, but the area had already explored Knippenberg: Knippenberg took pictures of Burg Stahleck in Bacharach already around 1920, when the castle was still a ruin, then he extensively documented the reconstruction in the 1930s. Classics of Rhine romance, romantic photos of Loreley and from Rüdesheim, vineyards or the photogenic Zollburg Pfalzgrafenstein, but also pictures of wine festivals proved to be successful postcard motifs.