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Magdeburg Prisoner of War Camp Silhouettes

View the silhouettes in Books & Albums

This is a collection of silhouettes from two albums containing portraits of some 294 officers. They include 15 British, 113 Belgian, 104 French and 43 Russian, nearly all of them captured by the Germans in the very early months of the war in 1914. They were deposited in the Magdeburg Prisoner of War Camp, situated between Hanover and Berlin in Germany. I believe these incredible images were made by an unknown British officer, firstly because the albums were purchased in England and, secondly, because a number of the Russian officers' attributions have been translated from the Cyrillic alphabet into English.

Let me first give a potted history of the enigmatic and shadowy world of silhouettes. They were originally called "black shades" and, over some 300 years, have offered a valuable social insight into the past. The earliest recorded "black shade" was a portrait of King William III and Queen Mary, cut by a Mrs. Pyburg in 1699. But we owe the name "silhouette" to Etienne de Silhouette (1709-1767) who was a French Minister of Finance. He indulged in the craze of the day by collecting portraits cut from black paper and he is said to have covered the walls of several rooms in his chateaux with them. So, in France, this type of art became known as "silhouette" and soon replaced "black shades."

The unidentified British officer who produced these wonderful images had purchased the albums from the local art shop in Magdeburg, run by a Walther Deneke. The great majority of the heads are signed by the sitters with their regiments, ranks, places of birth and, in some cases, their addresses and their room numbers at the Camp. Both albums contain labels stuck onto the front inside covers. The first is on a yellow background showing an advertisement for "Finest Dorset butter, specially prepared for Fortnum and Mason, 181-184 Piccadilly." The second advertises "Sweetbread and Tomato Sauce" and carries a red label with the words "Parcel for prisoner of war, opened by Censor and officially reclosed."


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