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Five Women with Two Children, Indoors

ca. 1915
Not on view
Three generations of women are immortalized in this photograph. Alongside dozens of other families from Saint-Louis, they are the result of a rooted history of mixed marriages between Europeans and Senegalese that has its origins in the Portuguese presence in Senegal in the sixteenth century. In this mixed society, women played a significant role and had exceptional economic and political power. Here, the room is modestly decorated with an iron bed, a calendar indicating 1915 as the current year, two small photographs, and a mirror. As this amateur strove to achieve the image’s optimal sharpness, his shot reveals the sitter’s movement with one of the standing women slightly out-of-focus. This blurred quality betrays the incidental nature of photography.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Five Women with Two Children, Indoors
  • Artist: Unidentified
  • Artist: Saint Louisian photographer
  • Date: ca. 1915
  • Geography: Senegal, Saint Louis
  • Medium: Glass, emulsion
  • Dimensions: 3 1/4 × 4 3/4 in. (8.3 × 12.1 cm)
  • Classification: Negatives
  • Credit Line: Visual Resource Archive, The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing
  • Object Number: VRA.2014.8.003
  • Curatorial Department: The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing

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