Card size: 16.8 x 10.9 cm,
Object size: 16.8 x 11.0 cm,
Image size: 13.9 x 9.4 cm
This photograph is a studio portrait of three young women wearing nautical fancy dress costumes. The woman on the left is possibly Eurasian, while the women in the centre and on the right are European. Printed on the recto is the studio mark ‘O. Kurkdjian’ and the mark ‘“Honorary Medal” Vienna 1882’.Born in Armenia, Ohannes Kurkdjian (1851–1903) arrived in Java in 1886 and opened his studio Kurkdjian Atelier (later renamed Kurkdjian & Co.) in Surabaya in 1890. The studio produced portraits as well as images of landscapes, still lifes and ethnographic scenes. Kurkdjian’s photographs were popular with tourists and the Dutch colonial government. In 1898, the firm presented an album of photographs to Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands and in 1902 received a Royal Warrant in return.Photography studios had been established in the Dutch East Indies by the 1860s, with the earliest studios being European-owned.
