[Collection of Handsome Photographs of Jamaica]

[Various locations in and around Kingston, Jamaica]: J.W. Cleary or H.S. Duperly, 1900. Very good.. Twelve glossy sepia-toned photographs, all approximately 7 x 9 inches, each with photographer's studio stamp on verso, some with pencil caption on verso. Mostly minor wear, bottom corners of two images with small chips, short closed tear to edge of one image. A captivating collection of twelve well-composed, professional photographs documenting turn-of-the-century Jamaica, produced by two early and important photographers located on the same street in Kingston. Six of the photographs were produced by J.W. Cleary at 89 King Street, while the other six were (truncated) done by H.S. Duperly. Cleary operated at 89 King Street from about 1882 to 1922, sometimes with a partner named E.W. Elliott; H.S. Duperly was part of the Adolphe Duperly family, the most successful photography studio in 19th-century Jamaica, also located on King Street for almost a century. The present photographs are an excellent cross-section of the people and scenery of Jamaica, showing sugar cane laborers, women en route to market laden with baskets of fruit, local village folk, along with indigenous structures, lush tropical landscapes, exotic flora and fauna, and more. All six of the Cleary images have handwritten pencil captions on the verso, providing details about the subjects, such as "Country Peasants going to market," "Castleton Botanical Gardens," "Cactus," "Sugar Cane Cutters" (showing almost twenty laborers amidst a field of harvested sugar cane), and "Castleton Gardens" (featuring a young local man juxtaposed against lush vegetation). The most striking captioned image features "A Negro Family," comprised of eleven indigenous men, women, and children posed outside their ramshackle home, all staring straight into the camera. The Duperly images are in a similar vein. The great majority of the images overall feature indigenous people in one way or another, but always demonstrating the individual dignity of each person. A wonderful collection of Jamaican images from the dawn of the 20th century. (Inventory #: 5591)