a photographic treasure dating from the 1900s exhibited in Paris

Scenes of daily life and moving ethnographic portraits constitute a rare photographic collection, around present-day Ethiopia and Eritrea, presented in Paris from October 26, 2022 to February 5, 2023.

At the origin of the exhibitionRecovered Photographic Treasures – Red Sea, Eritrea, Tigray, Ethiopia (1880-1936)”, a old album discovered near Rome by José-Marie Bel, historian and ethnologist. The book included 300 black and white photographs dating from the years 1900-1936. On the threadbare leather cover, one could read “Fondazione dell’Impero, IX maggio anno XIV”a reference to the creation of Italian East Africa (AOI, Italian colony in East Africa) by Mussolini on May 9, 1936.

The content of this “old grimoire” shows landscapes, sites and above all portraits of men, women and children photographed during a long journey from the shores of the Red Sea to Lake Tana, in central Ethiopia, passing through the high plateaus of the Eritrea and Tigray. “We do not know the name of the photographer(s), but the high quality of the prints show that it is the work of professionals”, noted José-Marie Bel who is also an architect, restorer of the Maison Rimbaud in Aden (Yemen) and co-founder, with Professor Théodore Monod, of the Reine de Saba museum space, in Paris.

After a long investigation which made it possible to collect the testimonies of a bygone era and to enrich his collection, José-Marie Bel now offers 500 photographs, geographical maps, engravings, stamps and albumen prints covering the period 1870-1885.

In this cabinet of curiosities, we also come across several documents Arthur Rimbaud − arrived in 1880 in Aden then in Harar in Ethiopia −, Henry de Monfreid − the author of Secrets of the Red Sea stayed there from 1911 to 1941 − or Hugo Pratt, author of the Corto Maltese and D’Ethiopiansenlisted at 17 in the Italian colonial army.

These photos, often large formats, were exhibited in Eritrea and Ethiopia in 2020 where they aroused a lot of emotion. “Thousands of people came to see the exhibition at the Alliance française, in Asmara and in Addis Ababa. They had never seen photos from that time, they recognized places, tribes, people. .. It was very exciting, we had so many projects together on the spot but everything stopped because of the war in Tigray”, says José-Marie Bel.

The exhibition is a magical journey on the shores of the Red Sea in the time of dhows pushed by the monsoon winds, but also the discovery of a little-known region, which in its time hosted the kingdom of the Queen of Sheba, then the first Christian churches.

The exhibition “Photographic Treasures Found – Red Sea, Eritrea, Tigray, Ethiopia (1880 – 1936)” is visible in Paris from October 26 to February 5, 2023, at 30 rue Pradier 75019 Paris.