The Prussian baron Alexander von Minutoli (1806-87) often sent his model collection to schools of the applied arts. The objects, however, suffered from this treatment. Thus he commissioned photographic reproductions to circulate instead. In 1853 Minutoli engaged Ludwig Belitski to make photographic reproductions on paper. Belitski was a photographer from Liegnitz in Silesia (now Legnica, Poland). He earned international fame from Minutoli's large commission (seven folio-sized volumes with 663 plates were produced) and won awards in Brussels and Amsterdam in 1855 and 1856.
