Mystery solved: the photo of a woman with a giant book is real!

The internet is a temple of one-time excitements, but I have just solved the 2013 photo mystery, so I’m going to share it with you.

The short version

The photo of a woman with a giant book is real. It was taken in 1958 by a Czech photographer Miroslav Peterka at the Clementinum, Prague.

It shows the National Library archivist preparing a manuscript for the spring exhibition of the Czechoslovak state idea at the Prague Castle.

The photography was published in 1959, in Fotorok magazine, and you can find it on page 35.

The long version

The background

▸ The photo became extremely popular in late 2013, as it showed a man or woman with a giant book that was either real or fake, and the info that was either incomplete or misleading.

▸ In November, 2013, the Retronaut published the photo submitted by John Pollock. The Retronaut is no longer available, but here is the Wayback Machine capture of the page, taken on November 15, 2013. The caption says: “c. 1940s: Man with books.” The photo was then shared by Cory Doctorow on Boing Boing and by the Paris Review. It’s how it all started.

▸ The original photo was posted on April 22, 2013, by a Tumblr blog, Lost and Found in Prague. Again, it’s no longer available, so here is how it was captured by the Wayback Machine. The caption says: ‘From archives of Prague castle, photo by M. Peterka.”

▸ Library Shenanigans wanted to track the origin of the photo, and contacted the Archives of the Prague Castle. An email received from the head archivist, Martin Halata, said that the photo was not from their archives.

▸ The discussion on the web, for instance here and here, was leading to a conclusion that the photo was either photoshopped or a part of a movie shooting. The place the photo was supposed to be taken was confirmed to be incorrect. The book was giant – too big to be real. Mission accomplished, we can move on to the next photo.

The method

▸ I hate when I can’t link back to the source of a photo I share on my blogs or in social media. The Lost and Found in Prague was run by someone living in the Czech Republic, that’s for sure. I assumed they made a scan of a photo they found in print.

▸ I decided to follow two paths:

– Find the place the photo was taken. If not the Prague Castle, then where?
– Track the photographer, and, following his assignments, find the publication.

The place

▸ The archives of the Prague Castle don’t store manuscripts. Which Czech library does? The National Library of the Czech Republic. Established in 1777, it holds over 21 thousand manuscripts, including the Codex Vyssegradensis and the Passional of Abbes Kunigunde.

▸ The library’s main location is the Clementinum, a historic complex of buildings in Prague. Yes, it’s the place with the beautiful Baroque library, which is a part of The National Library of the Czech Republic estate.

▸ I decided to find photos that would show the archives and shelves at the Clementinum. For that, I was using search terms in the Czech language and Google image search. And you know what, I found the pictures!

▸ The Czech news portal Top Vip reported about the National Library moving 800,000 volumes from the Clementinum to a new place. And one of the pictures is this:

▸ Cascading bookshelves that allow you to store books of different sizes are the same on both pictures! Plus, take a look at the details: the bookends, and the pins that are used to mount the shelves.

▸ So far, I can assume that the picture was taken at the Clementinum. I still don’t know whether it was manipulated, and whether it was made for the movie.

The photographer

▸ Finding the name of the photographer and following his assignments could lead to a real publication that would prove the picture was not manipulated. It could also help find the exact date, place, context, and, hopefully, track the digitized copy of the publication.

▸ The Tumblr blog provided partial information: “M. Peterka.” Sounds like finding the full name would be easy. It was not. I had to use search terms in the Czech language several times to finally find this Wikipedia entry for Miroslav Peterka (fotograf).

▸ Miroslav Peterka, born in 1924, graduated in 1943 from the State School of Graphics in Prague. It seemed he was the right person to take the photo we are looking for. Especially that one of his main activities was photo documentation for Literární Noviny magazine (in English: Literary News). We are very close…

▸ I used a combined search for the photographer’s name and the title of the publication to find the searchable archive at the Czech Digital Library.

▸ From now on, it was easy (but time-consuming). I searched for all publications with Miroslav Peterka’s photographs.

The publication

▸ Looking through search result pages at the Czech Digital Library website allowed me to find this beauty: Fotorok, Volume 58, Issue 1, published in 1959, page 35.

▸ The text under the photo says in Czech: “Archivy chystají velkou jarní výstavu československé státní myšlenky na Pražském hradě.” It translates to “The archives are preparing a large spring exhibition of the Czechoslovak state idea at Prague Castle.”

▸ We are almost there. An archivist at the National Library of the Czech Library in the Clementinum complex was preparing the manuscripts for the exhibition at the Prague Castle. Who said the exhibition was prepared by the Castle’s archives themselves?

▸ Obviously, the preview image behind the lock at the Czech Digital Library website still doesn’t prove the image was not manipulated.

▸ As the full view is available only for registered users, I was preparing to write an email to the administrators of the service, but decided to search the web before. Maybe the magazine was offered for sale on eBay, and a seller took a picture of page 35? What are the chances? 5% the most, for the most fanatic optimist.

▸ It came as a sweet reward for four hours of the investigation. An antique shop in Brno, Antikvariát Brno, offers a copy of Fotorok 58 for sale, in a generally good condition, with a torn dust jacket. The price is 244 CZK, which is 11 USD. And, bingo! One of the pictures of the inside pages shows the woman archivist with a giant book.

Mystery solved! Say bye to “I think this is a fake,” and “c. 1940s: Man with books.”

The conclusions

▸ The internet was wrong about the photo for nine long years. Was the mystery solved? I found the answer, so it’s solved for me. But, quite possibly, it was not solved for the rest of the internet.

▸ As I said, the internet is a one-chance-to-make-a-first-impression kind of place. The photo was hot in 2013. It was consumed, swallowed, and spit out. There is no reason to discuss an old photo while there are millions of other images waiting to be discovered.

Sorry, Miroslav Peterka.