Photographic portrait of Carl Gaden of Mt. Gambier, South Australia, mid 1880s.

Albumen print photograph, cabinet card format, 166 x 110 mm (mount); verso of mount with imprint of ‘Hammer & Co., Photographers, 172 Rundle Str., Adelaide’, and old identifying caption in pencil ‘Carl Gaden (Mt. Gambier)’; both the print and mount are in fine condition.

The Adelaide studio of German-born photographer William H. (Wilhelm Heinrich) Hammer was located at 172 Rundle Street between 1882 and 1886 (Davies & Stanbury, Mechanical Eye). Note the quaint spelling he uses in the abbreviation for Street – “Str”, which is the way German speakers abbreviate “Strasse”. The identified sitter in this fine portrait, Carl Gaden, was from a German immigrant family, and perhaps that was sufficient reason for him to have his likeness taken at the Hammer studio. It is also possible that the studio was recommended to him by a prominent Mt. Gambier resident, Mr. Friedrich W. Hammer (Hannover 1845 – 1939 Mt. Gambier), who, based on information in his obituary (Adelaide Chronicle, 23 November 1939) appears to have been a relative (perhaps a brother?) of William Hammer the photographer, of St. Peters, Adelaide. We believe the sitter to be Carl Heinrich Gaden (1857-1940), who married Ann Mathilda Unger (1860-1944) in Mt. Gambier on 30 July 1884. Both Carl and Ann were second-generation South Australians of German parentage. The portrait was in all likelihood taken a short time before their marriage. Carl and Alma had one child, Alma Charlotte (1886-1959).