Macdonald Calabar photographs
name: label: Creator
content: MacDonald, Claude Maxwell, Sir, 1852-1915
place: label: Place
content: Nigeria
label: Place
content: Africa
creator: label: Creator
content: MacDonald, Claude Maxwell, Sir, 1852-1915
setName: label: See more items in
content: Macdonald Calabar photographs
abstract: label: Summary
content: Photographic album formerly belonging to Major General Claude Maxwell Macdonald (1852-1915), Commissioner, Oil Rivers Protectorate, in West Africa, circa 1895. The album contains photographs of the consulate general in Old Calabar, Opobo and Bonny. Images, such as the arrival of Lady Macdonald in 1895 (returning from a home leave), interiors of British residences, and (named) group portraits of the British reflect colonial life and infrastructure. Native and British troops are depicted as well. Several images show the results of the British attacks on Brass and Nembe, in retaliation for King Nana's unwillingness to cooperate. 

Several images were taken of chiefs, among them a copy photograph of a 1882 image of King Nana of the Benin River, King Jaja of Opobo, King Koko of Brass, King Duke IX of Old Calabar, and King George Pebble of Bonny. Perhaps the most outstanding imagery is a series "On the way to Benin," which contains the photograph of an altar, a crucified woman, a forest path, and a contingent of British colonials. Several remarkable photographs depict Cross River masquerades with head crests, dances of Kru "Boys," and portray women of the Niger Delta. One photograph, showing the bronze sculpture of a Benin horseman placed on a rug in front of a wall (very likely taken in Nigeria), is of great interest for art historians. This particular figure left Benin before the city was ransacked and destroyed by the British Punitive Expedition in 1987, and, according to William B. Fagg, eminent historian of Nigerian art, came to the Merseyside County Museums, Liverpool, UK, as early as 1892 (note that Macdonald arrived in the Oil Rivers Protectorate in 1891).
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 135 Negatives (photographic) (dupe negs, black & white, 4 x 5 in. )
label: Extent
content: 135 Photographic prints (albumen, black & white, 14 x 21 cm.)
label: Extent
content: 135 Photographic prints (copy prints (2 v.), black & white, 8 x 10 in.)
unitdate: label: Date
content: circa 1895
container: label: Container
content: Item 135
label: Container
content: Box 1
label: Container
content: Volume 1
label: Container
content: Volume 2
custodhist: label: Custodial History note
content: Purchase, 1996. Conserved through a preservation grant funded by the Smithsonian Institution Women's Committee, 2006.
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, National Museum of African Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: EEPA.1996-019
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Negatives
label: Type
content: Photographs
label: Type
content: Negatives (photographic)
label: Type
content: Photographic prints
label: Type
content: Black-and-white photographs
arrangement: label: Arrangement note
content: Images indexed by negative number.
bibliography: label: Bibliography
content: Geary, Christraud M. "Early Images from Benin at the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution." African Arts, 30, Summer 1997, pages 44-53, 93
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Photographic prints
label: Genre/Form
content: Black-and-white photographs