Group of people from Zamora. Sayago

Vintage contact print, developed from a glass negative and adhered to a secondary support surface, where we see a group of men and women wearing the regional costumes of the Sayago region of Zamora posing before a building, possibly the Palace of the Trinity in Madrid.
On the occasion of Alfonso XIII’s marriage to Mercedes of Orléans in January 1878, different delegations from every province in Spain came to the capital, wearing their traditional costumes and accompanied by musical instruments. These groups may have been photographed by J. Laurent and A. Roswag on Sunday, 27 January, when they gathered to pay tribute to the monarch, and Monday the 28th, before the delegations were received by the king. The man behind this initiative was J. M. Tubino, secretary of the Spanish Anthropological Society, who saw it as a rare opportunity to record these folk costumes and later present the photographs at the 1878 Exposition Universelle in Paris.
Jean Laurent was one of the most prestigious photographers active in Spain at the time. He produced numerous photographic catalogues of outdoor settings and portraits, as well as the famous “popular types” series.