Swahili Woman in Flamboyant Kanga and Turban

Swahili woman posing with arms akimbo, flamboyantly dressed in printed kangas and turban and wearing jewelry

A.C. Gomes and Co.
Gelatin silver print
Zanzibar, c. 1900

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.