'Somali Female Stick-Gatherer'. Photographer: Unknown [‎130a] (1/1)

Content

Genre/Subject Matter:

This full-length standing studio portrait of a woman is intended to demonstrate an ethnic, occupational and class ‘type’, in this case that of a Somali ‘stick-gatherer’. Although Frederick Mercer Hunter provides no description for stick-gatherers, the woman’s ragged clothing and pose may have been intended to demonstrate that she is what Hunter describes on p. 33 as a ‘low-born Somali or [negro] (Jarbarti)’who undertakes ‘scavengers’ work’.

The woman, posed in a studio with rocks about her feet and carrying a long walking stick, appears bent over under the weight of the bundle of sticks she is carrying. A twisted rope binds the sticks together and forms a harness about her upper torso. The woman is blind or has an eye condition which has clouded her retinas.

Inscriptions:

In pencil, upper left corner adjacent to print: ‘12’

Extent and format

1 albumen Method of printing photographs using an emulsion of salt and egg white (albumen). print

Physical characteristics

Dimensions:

87 x 55 mm [portrait]

Format:

1 albumen Method of printing photographs using an emulsion of salt and egg white (albumen). print pasted to backing paper and mounted between pp. 130-31

Materials:

Silver printing-out paper, albumen Method of printing photographs using an emulsion of salt and egg white (albumen). print

Condition:

The print is unevenly hand-cut, with one surface adhesion of card in the upper left corner along the left-hand edge. Dark spotting and streaking throughout the upper half of the image originate in the printing process.

Foliation:

‘12’

Process:

Albumen Method of printing photographs using an emulsion of salt and egg white (albumen). print

Written in

English in Latin script

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