The hairy-eared rhinoceros before 1886

This photograph of a hairy-eared rhinoceros by J. Fortuné Nott is pasted into a book. The book, rather than the image, might be our focus for today. The image has all the hallmarks of nineteenth-century European colonialism, from which museums emerged as institutions devoted to organizing and displaying knowledge. The photograph is a document, an attempt to control knowledge about the world by cataloging and classifying it. Consider the act of pasting it into a book. What kind of book is it? Is it an inventory of species? A private collection of images? How does the book function in the creation and dissemination of knowledge? Looking at the history of photography, of zoology, and of European imperialism can help us better understand the cultural and institutional context that shaped both the making of this image, and our interpretation of it. We might ask, in whose service was this image made?