Untitled (West Indian Women Being Measured)
Unknown Artist
c. 1860s
Medium
three studies mounted on a single card
Dimensions
image 1: 8.6 × 5.2 cm · image 2: 8.6 × 5.2 cm
Classification
Photograph
Department
Photography
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of Barbara Tannenbaum and Mark Soppeland
Accession Number
2019.70
About this artwork
The eerie depictions of three ages of West Indian women of African descent are early examples of photography’s use by nineteenth-century anthropologists to categorize different ethnic and racial types within the human race. These images were almost certainly taken by a European or Caucasian photographer during a time of colonial occupation.