Kaiser Wilhelm II Original 1888 Cabinet Card Photograph Atelier Scheurich Berlin

Original Imperial German cabinet card photographic portrait of Wilhelm II, German Emperor and King of Prussia, produced and published in his accession year of 1888 by the Berlin court photographer Atelier Scheurich. The piece is one of the earliest official photographic representations of Wilhelm II as Kaiser, distributed during the opening months of his reign and bearing both the photographer's blindstamp dated 1888 and the printed publication imprint identifying the Berlin SW studio at Friedrichstrasse 207. The mount measures approximately 4 by 6.5 inches in the standard German cabinet card format.

The albumen photograph presents Wilhelm II in waist-length three-quarter view, his head turned slightly to his left, gaze directed past the camera. He is shown in the dress Attila tunic of the Prussian Hussars, the heavily braided and frogged jacket pattern derived from the Hungarian light cavalry tradition and worn by the Hussar regiments of the Prussian Army throughout the nineteenth century. The Attila is finished across the front with five double rows of intricately knotted bullion cord Schnüren in the characteristic Hussar configuration, fastened by olive-shaped toggle buttons, with corresponding cord knotwork extending across the chest in interlocking patterns. A heavy cord Fangschnur (aiguillette) crosses the upper chest from the right shoulder, indicating the wearer's position as a regimental colonel-in-chief or comparable senior cavalry appointment. The shoulder cords and braided collar of the Hussar pattern are visible at the upper edge of the image. The Kaiser wears his hair short and brushed back from the forehead in the close military style, with his characteristic upturned mustache fully developed in the form for which he became internationally recognized.

The image was produced during a transitional moment of unusual historical significance. The year 1888 is known to German historians as the Dreikaiserjahr (Year of Three Emperors). Wilhelm I, the first German Emperor, died on 9 March 1888 at the age of ninety. He was succeeded by his son Friedrich III, who reigned only ninety-nine days while suffering from terminal throat cancer, dying on 15 June 1888. Friedrich III was in turn succeeded by his son Wilhelm II, then twenty-nine years of age, who would reign for the following thirty years until his abdication in November 1918 at the close of the First World War. Photographic portraits dated specifically to 1888 therefore document the new Kaiser at the very threshold of his reign, before the political and personal evolutions that would mark the Wilhelmine era. The relative youth of the subject in this image, the relatively restrained mustache form, and the absence of decorations beyond the regimental dress are all consistent with this opening-year dating.

The photographer's attribution carries weight independent of the subject. Atelier Scheurich of Friedrichstrasse 207 in Berlin SW operated as one of the principal Berlin court photography studios of the late 1880s, producing official and semi-official portraits of members of the German Imperial family, the Prussian royal house, and the senior nobility. The Friedrichstrasse 207 address placed the studio within the central commercial and government district of imperial Berlin. The studio's blindstamp signature Scheurich 1888 impressed into the lower right of the photograph itself, and the printed publication imprint along the lower margin of the mount identifying Verlag: Atelier Scheurich, 1888, Berlin SW., Friedrichstrasse 207, together establish the piece as a contemporary first-issue printing rather than a later commemorative or commercial reproduction.

Beneath the photograph, the printed identification reads in two lines: Wilhelm II. and Deutscher Kaiser und König von Preussen (German Emperor and King of Prussia). The dual title reflects the constitutional position established in 1871 whereby the King of Prussia held the additional dignity of German Emperor as primus inter pares among the federated rulers of the German Empire. Cabinet cards of this format and identification were produced for sale to the German public and for distribution within official and military circles during the early months of the new reign, serving the dual function of personal portraiture and constitutional propaganda.

Condition is consistent with the age of the piece and reflects its character as an issued period photograph rather than a museum-conserved example. The albumen image retains good tonal range with clear detail in the Kaiser's face, the mustache, and the elaborate Hussar braiding. Period toning is present across the upper portion of the image with light scattered foxing distributed across the upper background field. The mount shows even toning to a warm cream tone with edge wear and minor surface soiling consistent with handling and storage. The blindstamp and printed imprints remain crisp and fully legible. The reverse of the mount is plain with light period toning and a small handwritten ink notation in the upper corner consistent with period collector or archival annotation. No tears, creases, or losses to the photographic image itself are observed.

For the collector, original 1888-dated cabinet cards of Wilhelm II issued by named Berlin court photographers occupy a distinct and well-defined category within Imperial German personality material. Pieces specifically datable to the Dreikaiserjahr are sought by serious collectors of Wilhelmine-era material, by historians and writers researching the transition of the Imperial succession, and by institutions building reign-by-reign documentary holdings of the German Imperial period. The Atelier Scheurich attribution and the dual blindstamp and printed dating make this example particularly well-documented relative to the often-anonymous run of late nineteenth-century Imperial German cabinet portraits. Surviving examples in this condition with both the studio blindstamp and the publication imprint intact are increasingly scarce.