Wet nurse with child

Wet nurse with child

Photographs of Enslaved Black Women in Brazil

The photographer of this image, Albert Henschel, was a German business photographer working in Brazil in the late 19th century. Like much of his work, he photographed portraits in the carte-de-visite style, which is a small scale photo produced as business cards. Henschel gained much success through opening photography studios in Rio de Janeiro, and Sao Paulo called Photographia Imperial. His studios mainly offered portraits, where the subjects are set in scenes related to their status. This image of a Black wet nurse and a white child is in the carte-de-visite format, where a white child is sitting on top of a pedestal, as her nurse is propping her up, and sitting behind her. The pedestal is decorated with a pillow, and foliage surrounding it. The child is wearing a clean white dress, and the nurse is wearing a formal dress with an ornamental neck tie, and her hair tied up. Their expressions are neutral. Within the cartes-de-visites style that Henschel used, it was intended that the subjects be presented as people, rather than artifacts of ethnicity. However, even if this business card photo of a Black nurse and child are to show the subjects as people, the nature of the relationship, and the white child on the pedestal perpetuates the idea that Black enslaved nurses were not objectified if they were loved by their white child and employers. Both the clothing and the hair style of the enslaved Black nurse is void of her culture, it is white washed. Further, the white child is sitting on the pedestal, which indicates that her status and race is systematically above the nurse’s.

Albert Henschel

Itaú Cultural

1880

Itaú Cultural

jpg file

Portuguese

Slavery in Brazil

photograph