Egyptian Women’s History: Kairo. Charrette transportant des femmes Arabes, Cairo, circa 1890 to 1910

Egyptian Women Photograph Middle East

Photograph

Photoglob Company. Kairo. Charrette transportant des femmes Arabes, circa 1890 to 1910, records women and children traveling by donkey cart in Cairo during the period of British occupation of Egypt. The color photochrom belongs to the expanding late nineteenth-century European market for photographic views of Egypt, in which urban streets, architecture, monuments, and inhabitants were reproduced for international circulation. The Library of Congress identifies the publisher as Photoglob Company of Zürich and preserves another example under the same title and print number, 2187 P.Z.

Color photochrom print, circa 1890 to 1910. 10.5" x 8". Mounted on split card. Six women and two small children ride together on the back of a cart traveling along an unpaved street, led by a barefoot boy and a white donkey. The women wear long garments and head coverings, while an architectural entrance with ornamental detailing appears behind the cart. Gold lettering along the lower edge reads “2187. P.Z. Kairo. Charrette Transportant des Femmes Arabes.” The Library of Congress records the same image under this title and notes that the 1905 Detroit Publishing Company foreign catalogue alternatively identified it as “Egypt. Cairo. Women in Donkey Cart.”

Photochrom production transformed monochrome photographic negatives into color prints through a photolithographic process, allowing views such as this Cairo street scene to circulate internationally as commercial images. The printed title identifies the women according to the period’s European ethnic terminology, while the scene itself preserves details of transportation, clothing, street surfaces, architecture, and the presence of women and children in a late nineteenth or early twentieth-century Cairo streetscape. Minor imperfections; overall very good condition. The surviving print number and caption permit direct comparison with the example in the Library of Congress Photochrom Print Collection and with its documented commercial catalogue title.

Item #14390

Price: $225.00