Governor Asch van Wijck with Company at the Jagtlust Plantation, Théodore van Lelyveld, 1895 - 1898
gelatin silver print, h 118mm × w 159mm
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© erven Théodore van Lelyveld
The photographer Van Lelyveld takes this group portrait on the Jagtlust Plantation near an imposing kapok tree (kankantrie). In his album he notes all the sitters’ names except that of the Hindustani girl. Was she spontaneously invited to be in the photograph? Would her mother have given her permission? Many women die during childbirth from exhaustion and poor sanitary conditions; perhaps the girl is an orphan.
