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Swahili Woman in Zanzibar

1905

Smithsonian National Museum of African Art

Smithsonian National Museum of African Art
Washington, DC, United States

Swahili Woman

Photographer unknown
Gelatin silver print
Zanzibar, before 1905

During the 1870s, Zanzibar Town’s first commercial photography studios were among the earliest established in east Africa. A. C. Gomes and the brothers Felix and J.B. Coutinho, probably part of the Portuguese/Goan diaspora, sold portraits, views, and commercial subjects to the Sultan’s family and Zanzibari elite, as well as to the stream of foreign visitors and emigrés. But an entirely different kind of subject would soon emerge with the end of slavery in 1897 - images of newly freed women.

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  • Title: Swahili Woman in Zanzibar
  • Date Created: 1905
  • Location: Zanzibar, Tanzania
  • Subject Keywords: African Colonial Photographs
  • Type: Photograph, Portrait
  • Publisher: Winterton Collection of East African Photographs, Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies, Northwestern University, Evanston
  • External Link: Original Record
  • Medium: Gelatin silver print
Smithsonian National Museum of African Art

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