Card size: 16.8 x 10.7 cm,
Object size: 16.6 x 10.7 cm,
Image size: 14.3 x 9.7 cm
This photograph is a studio portrait of a young woman (possibly Eurasian) standing with a fan in her right hand. She appears to be wearing a fancy dress costume complete with a turban and large pieces of jewellery. Printed on the recto is the studio mark ‘C. Nieuwenhuis Photograaf. / Padang / Sumatra’s Westkust’.C. B. Nieuwenhuis (1863–1922) was a Dutch photographer who arrived in Batavia (Jakarta) in 1884 as a member of the Royal Military Band of The Netherlands. It was there where he learned photography at the studio of Koene & Co., before leaving for Padang in West Sumatra where he established his own studio in 1891. He photographed studio portraits as well as local landscapes and ethnographic subjects during his travels. In 1901 he travelled with a military expedition to Aceh under the command of General Van Heutsz.Photography studios had been established across the Straits Settlements and the Dutch East Indies by the 1860s, with the earliest studios being European-owned.
