Everything is Disappearing! Carl Theodor Reiffenstein (1820–1893): Visual Chronicler of Old Frankfurt

'One must hurry to see Frankfurt ... ten years more of the ongoing transformations and the old imperial city will not have preserved anything of its past but photographs' (Victor Tissot, 1874). The artist Carl Theodor Reiffenstein defied this prognosis. With more than 2,000 drawings and watercolours as well as nearly 3,000 manuscript pages of descriptions, he worked to document everything threatened with oblivion.

Starting in November, the unique collection of this visual chronicler of the nineteenth century – a turbulent period of modernization – will be the focus of an exhibition at the Historisches Museum Frankfurt.