„Hauchbilder“ – ein fast vergessenes Stück Kultur

"Hauchbilder" - an almost forgotten piece of culture Research on the history and practical experiments on the production of coloured, movable pictures on the basis of fish glue “Hauchbilder” are composed of natural or artificially coloured, thin fish glue films, which, in the tradition of monastery and devotional pictures, were decorated with sayings and pictorial motifs. To produce the small-format pieces, the glue solution was poured on an etched or engraved copper plate. After drying, the film with the transferred motif could be removed. When heat is applied, the thin films begin to move. Hauchbilder were produced from the middle of the 17th century to the beginning of the 20th century. This article looks at the history of the Hauchbilder and describes some of the few surviving originals. Subsequently, practical experiments are presented, based on the historical recipes of Johann Kunckel (1707), Sebastian Trautner (1715), Johann Heinrich Moritz von Poppe (1819) and Hans Haggenmüller (1924).