Basel [ˈbɑːsəl]?/i (französisch Bâle, italienisch Basilea, rätoromanisch Basilea?/i) ist eine Grossstadt und politische Gemeinde sowie Hauptort des Kantons Basel-Stadt, den es zusammen mit den Landgemeinden Riehen und Bettingen bildet. Nach Zürich und Genf ist Basel mit seinen 175'131 Einwohnern (31. Dezember 2015) die drittgrösste Stadt der Schweiz.[3]
Basel liegt am Dreiländereck Schweiz-Deutschland-Frankreich und hat aus diesem Grund viele Vororte in allen drei Ländern. In der trinationalen Agglomeration der Stadt wohnen rund 830'000 Menschen.[4]
Die Stadt gliedert sich in Grossbasel auf der linken (südwestlichen) Seite des Rheins und Kleinbasel (einschliesslich des früheren Fischerdorfes Kleinhüningen) am rechten Rheinufer. Das Zentrum Basels sind die Altstadt in Grossbasel rund um den Marktplatz – wo auch das Rathaus (Baubeginn 1504) steht – und der über den Rhein emporragende Münsterhügel mit der Pfalz-Terrasse. Die Mittlere Brücke verbindet die Altstadt auf beiden Seiten des Rheins. In der vom Autoverkehr befreiten Innenstadt verkehrt das Tram.[5]
Basel ist ein Zentrum der Chemie- und Pharmaindustrie. So haben unter anderem die beiden Pharmafirmen Novartis und Hoffmann-La Roche ihren Hauptsitz in Basel. Mit nahezu vierzig Museen auf dem gesamten Kantonsgebiet, ist Basel auch für seine zahlreichen Kunst- und Kulturinstitutionen von Weltrang berühmt. Das städtische Kunstmuseum stellt hier die gemeinhin als wichtigste erachtete öffentliche Kunstsammlung der Schweiz aus.[6] Im Jahr 1460 wurde in Basel die erste schweizerische Universität gegründet. In Basel fand 1897 ausserdem der erste Zionistische Weltkongress statt.
Basel (also Basle /ˈbɑːzəl/ or /ˈbɑːl/; German: Basel [ˈbaːzl̩]; French: Bâle [bɑːl]; Italian: Basilea [baziˈlɛːa]) is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine. Basel is Switzerland's third-most-populous city (after Zürich and Geneva) with about 175,000 inhabitants.[3]
Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany. In 2014, the Basel agglomeration was the third largest in Switzerland with a population of 537,100[4] in 74 municipalities in Switzerland and an additional 53 in neighboring countries (municipal count as of 2000).[5] The official language of Basel is (the Swiss variety of Standard) German, but the main spoken language is the local variant of the Alemannic Swiss German dialect.
The city is known for its various internationally renowned museums, ranging from the Kunstmuseum, the first collection of art accessible to the public in Europe, to the Fondation Beyeler (located in Riehen), and its centuries long commitment to Humanism, offering a safe haven among others to Erasmus of Rotterdam, the Holbein family, and more recently also to Hermann Hesse and Karl Jaspers. Basel has been the seat of a Prince-Bishopric since the 11th century, and joined the Swiss Confederacy in 1501. The city has been a commercial hub and important cultural centre since the Renaissance, and has emerged as a centre for the chemical and pharmaceutical industry in the 20th century. It hosts the oldest university of the Swiss Confederation (1460).
The
cabinet card was a style of photograph which was widely used for photographic portraiture after 1870. It consisted of a thin photograph mounted on a card typically measuring 108 by 165 mm (4 1⁄4 by 6 1⁄2 inches).
The carte de visite was quickly replaced by the larger cabinet card. In the early 1860s, both types of photographs were essentially the same in process and design. Both were most often albumen prints; the primary difference being the cabinet card was larger and usually included extensive logos and information on the reverse side of the card to advertise the photographer's services. However, later into its popularity, other types of papers began to replace the albumen process. Despite the similarity, the cabinet card format was initially used for landscape views before it was adopted for portraiture.
Some cabinet card images from the 1890s have the appearance of a black-and-white photograph in contrast to the distinctive sepia toning notable in the albumen print process. These photographs have a neutral image tone and were most likely produced on a matte collodion, gelatin or gelatin bromide paper.
Sometimes images from this period can be identified by a greenish cast. Gelatin papers were introduced in the 1870s and started gaining acceptance in the 1880s and 1890s as the gelatin bromide papers became popular. Matte collodion was used in the same period. A true black-and-white image on a cabinet card is likely to have been produced in the 1890s or after 1900. The last cabinet cards were produced in the 1920s, even as late as 1924.
Owing to the larger image size, the cabinet card steadily increased in popularity during the second half of the 1860s and into the 1870s, replacing the carte de visite as the most popular form of portraiture. The cabinet card was large enough to be easily viewed from across the room when typically displayed on a cabinet, which is probably why they became known as such in the vernacular. However, when the renowned Civil War photographer, Mathew Brady, first started offering them to his clientele towards the end of 1865, he used the trademark "Imperial Carte-de-Visite."[1] Whatever the name, the popular print format joined the photograph album as a fixture in the late 19th-century Victorian parlor.
The reverse side of the card as seen above.
Ironically, early into its introduction, the cabinet card ushered in the temporary demise of the photographic album which had come into existence commercially with the carte de visite. Photographers began employing artists to retouch photographs (by altering the negative before making the print) to hide facial defects revealed by the new format. Small stands and photograph frames for the table top replaced the heavy photograph album. Photo album manufacturers responded by producing albums with pages primarily for cabinet cards with a few pages in the back reserved for the old family carte de visite prints.
For nearly three decades after the 1860s, the commercial portraiture industry was dominated by the carte de visite and cabinet card formats. In the decade before 1900 the number and variety of card photograph styles expanded in response to declining sales. Manufactures of standardized card stock and print materials hoped to stimulate sales and retain public interest in card photographs. However, as with all technological innovations, the public increasingly demanded outdoor and candid photographs with enlarged prints which they could frame or smaller unmounted snapshots they could collect in scrapbooks.
In no small part owing to the immense popularity of the affordable Kodak Box Brownie camera, first introduced in 1900, the public increasingly began taking their own photographs, and thus the popularity of the cabinet card declined.[2]