Twee portretten van een onbekende vrouw met een neusring uit Madras before 1886

These two photographic portraits of an unknown woman with a nose ring from Madras were made by Paolo Mantegazza. In the nineteenth century, photography was a complex, alchemical craft. Images were coaxed into being through a combination of chemistry, light, and time. The tonal range in these portraits, the delicate sepia, speaks to the skill involved in manipulating these elements. But there's also a social dimension to this image. Mantegazza, an Italian anthropologist, used photography as a tool to document and classify people from different cultures. The woman's jewelry and clothing, her very image, became data points. The material culture on display here becomes part of a larger narrative of colonialism and the objectification of non-Western peoples. It's a reminder that even the most seemingly objective technologies like photography, are shaped by the social context in which they are produced.