Gezicht op twee villa's in Karlovy Vary before 1891

This photogravure of two villas in Karlovy Vary was made by Carl Pietzner, an Austrian photographer who died in 1927. Here we see an image of the architecture of leisure, in what was then a fashionable spa town in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The proliferation of such grand villas speaks to the growth of a wealthy leisure class in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Pietzner was a commercial photographer and this image was made for mass consumption, reproduced as a postcard or souvenir. It's interesting to consider the ways in which photography contributed to the growth of tourism, as such images circulated and encouraged wealthy Europeans to visit Karlovy Vary. Understanding the institutional contexts of art like this means looking at records of tourism, as well as the commercial activities of photographers, who are also an integral part of the story of art.