The collection consists of studio portraits of Jamaican musicians. It includes two photographs by A. Duperly & Sons studio depicting members of the West Indian Regiment band in the Zouave uniform, as well as one photograph of a Jamaican man holding a violin.
Adolphe Duperly (d. 1865) was an engraver, lithographer, and photographic pioneer. He opened a daguerreotype studio in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1840. He was joined by his sons Henri Louis and Oscar and the studio became the first Kodak dealer in the region. A. Duperly & Sons, which lasted until the early 20th century, specialized in postcards and photo books made from portraits and landscape views.
The collection is open for research.
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Photo Lot 87-33, Photographs of Jamaican musicians, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sent to the archives July 22, 1987, by Mary Kay Davies, of the Anthropology Library. A note on the envelope in which they were stored is in Clifford Evans' handwriting and states, "From Holmes' Files--Jamaica in File marked 1895."
Additional A. Duperly & Sons photographs can be found in the National Anthropological Archives in Photo Lot 8 and Photo Lot 97.