Photographer unknown Postcard Zanzibar, c. 1890 TZ 20-25 Courtesy the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution
This portrait is notable for the extraordinary grace and splendor of its sitters. With their fine chemises of imported silk and cotton, tailored marinda pants, expensive shoes, silver jewellery and beads, and uncovered heads, these young women may have served Omani royal women. Wapambe were a class of unfree women who were adorned expressly for public display and who literally embodied the wealth of their owners. Heavily jeweled wapambe paraded and danced at festivals; they represented the aristocratic ladies who were required to remain hidden from view.
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.
Coutinho Brothers Postcard, collotype Zanzibar, c. 1900 TZ-20-11 Courtesy the Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution
Felix and J.B Coutinho photographed in the studio and on the street, capturing turn-of-the-century Zanzibar. Their success was rooted in their production of thousands of postcards, sold to the city’s enormous flow of visitors. While some postcards and souvenir photographs were staged with models, others originated as private portraits that later entered the mass market. These women, heads modestly covered, dazzle with luxury clothing and imported jewels. Their panache stands in stark contrast to the labeling of the postcards, which categorises them, rather than naming them as individuals.
Coutinho Brothers Albumen print Zanzibar, c. 1890 65-2 Courtesy the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies Winterton Collection, Northwestern University
photographs from the Coutinho Brothers studio show women reflecting distinct and different engagements with the photographer and each other. Alternately resistant, playful, and decorous, this range of interactions leaves a complex and ambiguous photographic record. References from the albums in which they were collected suggest two may represent Comorian women, likely referencing the long chemise and trousers and the stylish kanga.
Photographer unknown Albumen print Zanzibar, c. 1890 72-3-7-2 Courtesy the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies Winterton Collection, Northwestern University
Portraits of the Zanzibari elite of the 1890s reveal changing vogues of fashion and personal adornment, glimpses of which were seen in the city, in women’s private domestic spaces, and in the photographic studio. Collections of elite portraits suggest that photography studios were a liminal place, semi-private and semi-public. In them, photographers captured a woman’s adornment as individual expression - ephemeral beauty refined into a still image. One unattributed portrait presents a royal woman in her finery and barakoa, a mask made of silk and embellished with silver and gold threads, which both shielded and featured her eyes.
Photographer unknown Gelatin silver print Zanzibar, c. 1900 56-2-48 Courtesy the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies Winterton Collection, Northwestern University
Feminine beauty was viewed as both intensely personal and a commodity; for example, beautiful servants were highly sought after and enhanced their owners’ reputations as they moved through the city streets. Wives were sought for the hope of bringing beautiful children. Sailors working on the Indian Ocean for ten months of the year relayed tales of Zanzibar’s legendary beauties, whose images were captured in touristic photographs. Studios experimented with the formal qualities of their models, as seen in these photographs for the commercial market. Photographers framed young women’s faces and bodies with careful lighting, emphasizing their adornment, decorum, and elegance. The effect is at once inviting and distancing.
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