The Coutinho Brothers were Goan and involved within the Goan community in
Zanzibar. They initially partnered with A C Gomes before setting up by
themselves. Most photographs in the 19th century partnered with pharmacists
before they opened their own studio. They had no connections with Oswald
although other Goans did have trading connections with Oswald. By the time, the
Coutinho Brothers set up in Zanzibar, which was much later than 1870, the
Hamburg confederation operating in Zanzibar did not exist as such.
All best,Selma
On Saturday, 27 April 2024 at 18:50:07 BST, Neil van der Linden
<n...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
Dear Mrs Ryan
I was attending the conference today. I missed your answer to a question you
answered online. Might the Coutinho Brothers have been Dutch? It is a noble
Portuguese language surname, but also a Portuguese-Jewish name of a family
members of which, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, resided in
Amsterdam, Hamburg, Brazil and the West Indies, and as of today the name is
not uncommon in the Netherlands. Maybe they followed the Vlisco company.
Regards,
Neil van der Linden
From: MacKenzie Moon Ryan
Subject: Re: I missed your answer.
Date: 27 April 2024 at 18:25:51 CEST
To: Neil van der Linden <n...@xs4all.nl>
Hi Neil, if I may, I finished typing it just as they closed our session. Thank
you for reaching out! I’ve relied on what Jon Hannavy has recorded in his
Encyclopedia of 19th-century Photography, Vol. 1 (Routledge, 2007): 342-343 in
his entry on the Coutinho Brothers, though certainly more research is necessary
to draw any hard and fast conclusions. J.B. Coutinho and his brother Felix
were active ca. 1870s-1905. They established one of the first commercial
photography studies in Zanzibar. Little is known of their lives, jut judging
from their names and profession they may have been Goan or Portuguese. They
initially worked together for a little over ten years, ceasing when J.B.
partnered with A.C. Gomes & Sons ca. 1890 until 31 July 1897. The Coutinho
Brothers began working together again, producing photographic postcards sold
individually and in albums. They brothers parted ways again around 1905, when
Felix relocated to Mombasa. I think your connection to Vlisco is interesting,
given the Dutch connection. Hamburg also brings up another avenue—the Winterton
Collection of East African Photographs at Northwestern University possesses a
photographic album of the O’Swald company, which was compiled to celebrate the
50th anniversary of the establishment of Wm O’Swald & Company in Zanzibar,
celebrated in June 1899. The photographs therein record women wearing wrapped,
printed cloth, but photographed outside (rather than the staged, studio
portraits I mostly showed in my presentation). I suspect that these
photographed showed off the wares Wm O’Swald handled—printed kanga cloth. And I
know from my archival research at Vlisco that O’Swald served as the
merchant-converter firm, which commissioned kanga from Vlisco textile printers.
So perhaps the Coutinho Brothers had business ties with Hamburg and/or the
Netherlands (Vlisco is located in Helmond) and could very well have been part
of that Portuguese-Jewish then Dutch family. The timing of founding the
photography studio in Zanzibar in the 1870s certainly coincides with the boom
in printed cloth imports from Europe. Thanks for the suggestion. Fascinating!
Best,
MacKenzie —MacKenzie Moon Ryan, Ph.D.Associate Professor of Art
HistoryCo-Chair, Department of Art & Art HistoryPresident, Theta Chapter of
Florida, Phi Beta KappaRollins College
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