This group set includes all 12 hand-pulled photogravure plates (heliogravures) issued with the 1909 annual volume.

The masthead for the first issue of 1909 includes the following, with a customary editors note “to our Readers” that follows:

16th Year     2 January 1909.   No. 1 

Geïllustreerd Weekblad voor Fotografie

International Survey of Photography and related subjects of Art and Science.

Chief Editor J. J. M. M. VAN DEN BERGH,

Villa Henriëtte in Soest

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The Year 1909

To our Readers. (translated)

The Illustrated Weekly for Photography begins its sixteenth year with this issue, under very satisfactory circumstances.

The editors and publishers offer their respectful homage and congratulations to Her Majesty our beloved Queen, and also wish all other readers of their magazine a happy and prosperous year. They continue to recommend themselves for the support and cooperation of the readers, by sending in original contributions for the text and for the illustration of our magazine.

The editors will, as in other years, continue to deal with both the technical and the artistic side of photography in this magazine; they will try to make the content as attractive and important as possible and above all to keep the Weekly an independent body, which will say its opinion wherever appropriate, without regard to persons. And so we enter the year again, full of hope, full of courage and full of joy. Once again, all readers, good luck!

History: Geïllustreerd Weekblad voor Fotografie  1894-1910

The Dutch photographic journal Geïllustreerd Weekblad voor Fotografie (Illustrated Weekly Magazine for Photography) was published for 17 years, from 1894-1910. The masthead on the title page for yearly volumes owned by this archive indicate the “Weekblad” was the “Official Organ of the Amateur Photographers Association “Rotterdam” from at least 1903-1905, and most likely associated with the group much earlier. From 1893-1900, (1898 missing) the weekly was promoted as the Official Organ of the Nijmegen Amateur Photographers’ Association M.L. (1.)

The journal was initially published in Apeldoorn, a city in the province of Gelderland in the center of the Netherlands by Laurens Hansma from 1894-1906. Hansma, (1860-1920) according to a short biography by the Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam was “an enthusiastic amateur photographer….the publisher of more than fifteen books on photography, including Kleurenfotografie, Fotografie voor den natuurliefhebber, Gomdruk and Het fotografeeren in de tropicen. Laurens Hansma is seen as an important figure in the spread of photography in the Netherlands.”

From 1907-10, the “Weekblad” was then published in Zutphen, located approximately 30 minutes southeast of Apeldoorn- also in the province of Gelderland, by W.J. Thieme & Co.

At the end of its 17th year of publication in late 1910, the journal was purchased and incorporated into the pages of the Dutch photographic journal “Lux” (geillustreerd tijdschrift voor fotografie-illustrated magazine for photography). Now published by J.R.A. Schouten, Lux (1889-1927) took on the former weekblad’s top editor, J. J. M. M. Van Den Bergh, with him joining the growing publications editorial staff.

1. List of Dutch amateur photographers and their circle before 1900: Dissertation: Mattie Boom: Doctoral degree: Erasmus University Rotterdam: “Kodak in Amsterdam The Rise of Amateur Photography in the Netherlands 1880-1910” (p. 142)