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| The
shop Peter in March 2002
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„Peter“ today counts among in the old-established
shops in Meran, the famous Alpine health resort in the South
Tyrol (Italy). Its origins date back to the 19th century, when
the porcelain manifacturer Franz Peter moved from the Bohemian
spa Karlsbad (Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic) to Meran. On 16th
July 1894 he rented modest business premises in Meran Market
Street and opened, what he called a „chain-store“.
Actually, he had already sold his porcelain manifacturing plant
in Kaltenhofen (today Jalový Dvur/Czech Republik) in
the year before. This plant had been in his family’s possession
since 1867. So for Franz Peter and his mother, Apollonia Peter
née Mürling, the emigration to the town Meran in
the far west of the Austrian Empire was a new beginning.
Only for a few years the shop in Market Street stayed a pure
porcelain store. Soon also postcards added to the china commodities
and Franz Peter obtained the license for the sale of postage
stamps. Around the year 1899 Peter started to dedicate himself
to photography, a hobby that soon provided his livelyhood.
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| Franz
Peter in his shop on the day of his 80th birthday, 23rd
October 1934
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In the aspiring health resort Meran, becoming the most important
tourism centre in the south-west of the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy,
photographs became highly esteemed. Besides the typical views
of the town and the motives depicting the life of medical treatments,
there also was a certain demand for photographs of mountain
ridges and objects of cultural heritage. Franz Peter liked mountain
climbing himself and he was very interested in local history
and culture. In the course of the years he produced hundreds
of photographs of castles, manors, chapels, and parish churches
in the valleys of the western and southern Tyrol. Enthusiastically
he also dedicated himself to the historic events of the year
1809, when the Tyrol rose in rebellion against the Bavarian
occupation and its ally, the Napoleonic Empire. Peter produced
portrait reproductions of the various actors and heroes of that
insurrection and made them accessible to a wider public. He
also presented the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph a magnificently
bound album of photographs relating the war of independence.
It was later passed on to the Austrian National Library. With
the intention to create a mail-order business for historic portrait
photography, Franz Peter’s archive of negatives grew to
several thousands of glass plates.
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| Maria
Scheler née Haid in front of her shop in spring
1967
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After his mother’s death, Peter in 1914 took a girl-apprentice,
Maria Haid, who stayed on as a shop-assistant after her apprenticeship
years. In 1935, finally, she took over Peter’s firm, just
one month before he died.
Maria Haid carried the shop on as a postcard-store, but later,
after World War II., also souvenirs entered the range of products
on offer. Nevertheless, the photographic heritage of Franz Peter
continued to be utilised for reproductions, as these pictures
best showed the Meran of the “good old times”.
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| Norbert
Haid in the shop, March 2002
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In 1972 the shop passed on from Maria Haid to her nephew Norbert
Haid who intensified the souvenir sector immediately. With the
offer of minerals, fashion jewellery, ceramics and seasonal
gifts, he also served the local market. In recent years the
articles on offer were oriented towards fashion jewellery, a
sector more attractive to a younger public.
Despite all these changes the firm “Peter” was always
very conscious of its history and heritage. In the year of its
centenary, 1994, an exhibition of jubilee on Franz Peter and
his photographic life-work could be organised in co-operation
with “foto-forum”, the South Tyrolean Association
for Photography. The exhibition was shown in the Meran Pavillon
des Fleurs and the localities of the “foto-forum”
in Bozen, a catalogue was published in the Raetia Photographica
series.
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