Album of 30 Albumen Cartes-de-Visite of Peruvian Tipos y Costumbres, With Additional Portraits.
Lima; Callao; Montevideo: Courret Hermanos; Eugène Maunoury; José Martinoli, ca. 1865–1870. Album of albumen cartes-de-visite mounted on card leaves within an embossed photographic album. Contemporary brown blind-stamped leather, covers with geometric panel design in relief, brass clasp, edges gilt. 15 leaves, with 30 cartes-de-visite. Covers lightly worn, with rubbing and minor abrasion along edges and corners, slight loss to extremities; surface with light scuffing and handling marks. Gilt edges dulled and slightly rubbed. Leaves generally clean, with scattered foxing and occasional staining, more pronounced in places; mounts intact, with minor wear at apertures. Photographs well preserved overall, with occasional fading, surface spotting, and minor tonal variation; one photograph creased. Overall in very good condition, the binding stable and the contents well preserved.
A cohesive group of Courret Hermanos tipos y costumbres photographs, preserved in a contemporary album and combined with inscribed portraits from an Italian expatriate network in 1860s Peru.
A composite photographic album combining family portraits, exchanged cartes, and a substantial group of ethnographic and “type” images, centered on the production of Courret Hermanos in Lima.
The principal interest of the album lies in its extensive group (forming the first section, comprising 20 images) of ethnographic and “type” photographs—tipos y costumbres—depicting Indigenous and mixed-heritage subjects in studio settings that nevertheless preserve clear markers of regional dress, occupation, and social identity. These include individual portraits—many of them women—paired figures, and occupational scenes, often emphasizing clothing, tools, and posture as indicators of type. All but one of these images can be attributed to Courret Hermanos, whose work formed a widely circulated visual repertoire of Peruvian society. As noted by McElroy, “it would be impossible to illustrate a history of Peru in the second half of the 19th century without including Courret portraits” (1977), a statement borne out by the present group, which reflects both documentary ambition and commercial typology.
These photographs are anchored in the network of Lima studios active in the 1860s. The album records the transition from Eugène Maunoury—represented by a carte bearing the imprint “Correspondal de la Casa Nadar de Paris”—to Courret Hermanos, who appear as his successors. The Nadar reference originates with Maunoury’s studio, indicating its Parisian affiliation, and is retained on some Courret cartes. This sequence places the album in the mid-1860s, at the moment of transfer and consolidation of one of Lima’s leading studios.
The second section of the album (10 photographs) consists of family and presentation portraits, exchanged among a circle of Italian expatriates active in Peru. Inscriptions identify several names (including Bresciani, Puzzo/Bozzo, Campodoni, and Assalino), with dated dedications in Lima and Genoa, largely concentrated around 1868, suggesting a network structured through migration and likely reinforced by marriage. Among these figures, the name of Fortunato Schiaffini—documented as a ship captain involved in emigrant routes between Italy and South America—provides a plausible historical anchor for this milieu, situating the group within the broader context of mid-19th-century transatlantic movement. The presence within this group of a rare hand-coloured portrait by Courret Hermanos further indicates that these images were not merely utilitarian exchanges but could also include more refined and costly productions. The inclusion of photographs from Montevideo (notably José Martinoli, Fotografia Montevideo) reinforces the transregional character of this network, linking Lima, Callao, and the Río de la Plata.
Taken as a whole, the album brings together two intersecting spheres: the commercial production of ethnographic and typological imagery by one of the most important photographic studios in 19th-century Peru, and the private exchange of portraits within an Italian expatriate network spanning Lima and the Río de la Plata. While the latter provides the social framework for the album’s formation, the former constitutes its principal significance, offering a concentrated visual record of the ways in which Peruvian society—particularly its Indigenous populations—was represented, categorized, and circulated through photography in the decades following independence.
References: McElroy, K. (1977). The history of photography in Peru in the nineteenth century, 1839–1876 (as cited in Hannavy, J. [Ed.], 2008, Encyclopedia of nineteenth-century photography).; Schwarz, H. (2007). Fotógrafos franceses en el Perú del siglo XIX. Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Études Andines, 36(1), 39–49.; Schwarz, H. (2017). Estudio Courret: Historia de la fotografía en Lima. Municipalidad Metropolitana de Lima.
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Price: €14,000.00