Photographs of Brazilian customs

Christiano Junior settled at different addresses in Rio de Janeiro. As of the year 1862, he offered his services as a photographer in advertisements in the city's newspapers, dedicating himself "to take portraits by any photographic system".

In 1864, he became one of the owners of the Photographia do Commercio studio at Rua de São Pedro, 69. His partner was Fernando Antônio de Miranda. The number 69 of Rua de São Pedro was on the same block as the Church of São Pedro of Clerics. Both the church and street disappeared when Avenida Presidente Vargas was constructed in the early 1940s.

In 1865, Christiano Junior opened by himself a photographic studio at Rua da Quitanda, 45. Rua da Quitanda exists until today, site of several commercial establishments.

We can find the African Rio de Janeiro in the population that roamed the streets and markets of the city. It is almost possible to smell and hear the buzz of the fish market and its anchored boats after bringing goods from the depths of the Guanabara Bay.

The balaios, the cloths used by black women, which we take as turbans, but which served to accommodate the basket of goods over their heads, and the kiosks, which would later be removed from the landscape of Rio de Janeiro, reveal an important component in the daily life of the worker.

Produced since the 18th century in Bahia, the "balangandãs" were sold in Rio de Janeiro in the early 19th century. In addition to ornaments worn with the clothing of the female greengrocers at the Praia do Peixe Market Square (now Praça XV), their uses and meanings were not only aesthetic; they also indicated their carriers' spiritual protection, prosperity, and social prestige.

A trace of that time, the fountain that is in Praça XV used to be a meeting point for water bearers.

The person portrayed was not rewarded for image rights, but his/her portrait, sold as a souvenir from the tropics, responded to the demand for consumption of the exotic and enriched some people.

Christiano Junior took advantage of this lode and produced “a varied collection of customs and types of blacks, something very appropriate for those who leave for Europe”, as it was announced in the Almanaque Laemmert (1866). The photographs taken in Christiano Junior's studio, made for foreigners, do not depict the landscape, nor the city, nor the roads. They portray the enslaved people.

Christiano Junior presented 24 “Photographs of Brazilian customs” at the International Exhibition of 1865, in the city of Porto. After being exhibited, these images were offered by the photographer to dom Fernando, King of Portugal.

Of the 24 photographs, 12 are portraits of African faces and the other 12 are of “slaves who earn”. These are work scenes recreated in the photographer's studio, whose objective was to depict the activity, not to represent the individual. Therefore, we find basketmakers, greengrocers, barbers, porters, fruit and chair vendors.

As for the “types”, the pictures did not likewise seek to represent the person himself/herself, but his/her origin: Christiano Junior wrote under each face the nation or the African port that shipped them to Brazil: Mina Nagô, Cabinda, Angola, Mozambique, Monjolo, Congo.