Sign up to receive email notices of recent acquisitions.

Eisenmann, Charles, photog.

[Zulu woman and child.]

New York, [ca. 1881]. Carte-de-visite, image size 3.5” x 2.25”. CONDITION: Very good.

A scarce Eisenmann carte-de-visite photograph showing a Zulu woman and child and capitalizing on American fascination with Zulus following the death of Prince Napoleon and capture of King Cetshwayo in the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879.

This photograph shows a young woman wearing beads and a knee-length, belted fur dress. One hand holds a small weapon while the other rests on the arm of an exotic wooden chair in which a young child, in matching garb, poses with a zulu shield.

The Zulu people took the American imagination by storm during the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, and despite their defeat by the British, gained a reputation as fierce warriors.”The Great Farini” (a.k.a. William Hunt, Canadian showman) arranged for several Zulu people to be brought to London, where he exhibited them for about a year as “Farini’s Friendly Zulus” before joining forces with P. T. Barnum and showing at least four people at Bunnell’s Museum in New York City. Eight more individuals were brought to America not long after, and members of the group occasionally opened for Barnum’s “Greatest Show on Earth” at Madison Square Garden. At least two women were among them: “Princess” Amazulu, billed as the daughter of Cetshwayo, and Unamadloza, who is characterized sometimes as Amazulu’s attendant, sometimes as her cousin. This photo, undated, may be a portrait of Unamadloza. Though both women are described as wearing furry garments and both had young children in the early 1880s, Amazula reportedly wore necklaces, bangles, large earrings, and “[trained] her hair to stand upright,” (“A Consignment of Zulu”), while Umadloza, though “pretty” and “willowy,” wore “no such distinguished ornaments as the princess” (“A Princess Coming”).

Charles Eisenmann (1855–1927) was a German-born photographer who set up a studio in New York’s Bowery District and “focused almost exclusively on the ‘freaks’ of circuses, sideshows, and living museums” (“Ronald G. Becker”), including General Tom Thumb, Jo Jo the Dog-faced Boy, and many, many more. 

REFERENCES: “A Consignment of Zulu,” Cawker City Journal (Kansas), March 30, 1881; “A Zulu Princess,” The Saginaw Courier-Herald (Michigan), April 14, 1881; “A Princess Coming,” Reading Times (Pennsylvania), March 30, 1881; “Ronald G. Becker collection of Charles Eisenmann photographs” at Syracuse University online.

Item #8895

Price: $300.00

Add to Wish List