GUADELOUPE. - Type n° 2: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

A photographic postcard of an unidentified Guadeloupian woman in traditional Creole dress. She is featured from her torso up, wearing a light, patterned gown with a floral-patterned foulard shawl over her shoulders and tucked into her waist. She has on large earrings with a central cameo surrounded by a golden leaf motif and she wears a multi-layered necklace and a madras head scarf. The image fades to white toward the bottom where there is printed text, [GUADELOUPE. - Type n° 2 / Edit. Phos, Pointe-à-Pitre (Guadeloupe)]. The back of the postcard is unused and has [CARTE POSTALE] printed in black at the top and in smaller letters printed underneath [Ce côté est exclusivement réservé à l'adresse]. Four dark blank lines are below, the first line begins with [M____]. Handwritten in graphite on the top right corner is [10 €].

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date: 1900-1920
• Published by: Unidentified
• Photograph by: Edgar Littée, French, 1866 - 1931
• Subject of: Unidentified Woman or Women
• Type: postcards
• Medium: silver and photographic gelatin on photographic paper, with ink on paper
• Dimensions: H x W: 5 9/16 × 3 1/2 in. (14.1 × 8.9 cm)
• Place captured: Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, Caribbean, Latin America, North and Central America
• Cultural Place: France, Europe
• Cultural Place: Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, Asia
• Topic: African American
• Topic: African diaspora
• Topic: Clothing and dress
• Topic: Colonialism
• Topic: Fashion
• Topic: Freedom
• Topic: French colonialism
• Topic: Gender
• Object number: 2016.151.9
• Credit Line: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
• Data Source: National Museum of African American History and Culture

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of African American History and Culture through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed. The displayed image also has an explicit CC0 designation. The underlying object's rights statement is: Public domain Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.