63 Wedding scene
Budapest, 1870
Enlarged photo repainted in oil
Donated by the Strelisky family, 1934
The Strelisky family exemplified the rise of emancipated Jewish middle class citizens with dual Hungarian and Jewish identity in the 19th century. In 1830 David Brod, an immigrant from Galicia who later changed his name to David Strelisker got the job of Cantor at the conservative community of Pest. Of his 7 children, Lipót was one of the first ones to master the making of daguerreotypes, the precursor of photography.
In 1870,the year when the family painting was made, Strelisky was already a well-known and acknowledged photographer who worked with the most up-to-date technology and in whose studio located in the heart of Pest, the crème de la crème of the aristocracy, well-off citizens and artists had their pictures taken. After his death, his son Sándor – the boy holding a chalice on the painting – managed the studio at an equally high level, with a huge clientele until the end of the 1930s.