The Photograph Collection of Dante Lussin
The Photograph Collection of Dante Lussin includes 264 items: cameras and other photo accessories, bags for photographic equipment, photo developing kit, glass negatives and containers within which they are stored. The negatives mostly of the photographic images of the island of Lošinj and partly of the town of Cres at the beginning of the 20th century. Photographic equipment belonged to the Benedict Lergetporer Photo Studio, while photos were all taken by Dante Lussin. In 2010, the Lošinj Museum purchased the collection from Dante's grandson Mario Pfeifer and on that occasion the exhibition was set up at the museum. The following year, part of the collection was added to the permanent exhibition of the Lošinj Museum. The aforementioned part of the collection has been presented with photographic equipment and digital reproductions from Dante's glass negatives made by Nadir Mavrović, depicting the panoramas of the Lošinj area in the early 20th century.
Benedict Lergetporer Photo Studio
Benedict Lergetporer Photo Studio was opened on the waterfront of Mali Lošinj in 1897. It was primarily oriented to making and selling postcards. The studio was managed by Benedikt Alois Lergetporer (Salzburg, 1845 - Bled, 1910), a photographer who opened the first photographic studio in Bled and ran it like a family business. At that time, Bled was well known spa resort, and since skiing had yet to become a mass sport, winter was not busy season for the photographers. In these circumstances, Lergetporer opened a new branch of its photo studio in Mali Lošinj, then a well-known winter resort of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After his death, the business was run by his daughter Romana and his son-in-law Dante Lussin. When Dante died in 1937, the family continued to run the studio, i.e. it was managed by Dante's daughter Alice and her husband Ervin Pfeifer; however, the darkroom was heavily damaged in bombing of Lošinj during the Second World War, which eventually stopped the photographic activities and soon, after the war, the studio had to close its door.
Dante Lussin
Dante Lussin was born in Rijeka, being a postal clerk, he arrived in Lošinj around 1900, where he met his future wife Romana Lergetporer. After he married her in 1903, Dante was increasingly involved in the family business which inspired his growing interest in photography. In 1910, after the death of Benedict Lergetporer, when Romana officially took over her father's job, he completely dedicated himself to photography and quit his job at the post office.
While Romana was engaged in the photo studio most of the time, he devoted himself to photography taken outdoors. Carrying a wooden box camera, including heavy, 18 × 24 glass negatives, he spent travelling the entire Cres-Lošinj archipelago on foot, sailing in pasara boat or riding on his motorbike.
Over a hundred shots, mostly landscapes and panoramas of Veli Lošinj and Mali Lošinj, remained immortalized in picture postcards that he self-published and sold in the family shop. Along with the photographic equipment inherited from his father-in-law Benedict, he occasionally purchased the new one to make his work easier. Symptoms of serious illness began to manifest themselves already in the early 1930's, and Dante died in 1937.
