The Thereza Christina Maria collection is composed of 21,742 photos assembled by Emperor Pedro II (1825-91) throughout his life and donated by him to the National Library of Brazil. The collection covers a wide variety of subjects. It documents the achievements of Brazil and Brazilians in the 19th century and also includes many photographs of Europe, Africa, and North America. In 1862, the government of Spain under Queen Isabella II sent a team of naturalists to South America to collect objects for Spanish museums. The endeavor was known as the Scientific Commission of the Pacific. Rafael Castro y Ordonez, a draftsman on the commission, documented the trip in photographs, producing a pictorial record of the ethnic and cultural diversity of the Americas in the mid-19th century. This photograph was taken in the coastal state of Bahia. One of Brazil’s centers of sugar cultivation, it was also the home of most of the country’s slaves.
<br>Memory of the World; Merchants; Peddlers; Portrait photographs; Portraits; Street vendors
Castro y Ordóñez, Rafael (1834-1865)
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<ul><li>Gallery: <a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://www.wdl.org/en/item/1603/">http://www.wdl.org/en/item/1603/</a></li></ul>