Could the Coutinho brothers phoographers have come from Goa? Or from The Netherlands..

[Neil van der Linden]

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 <nv...@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 19^th-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 50^th 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 History

Co-Chair, Department of Art & Art History

President, Theta Chapter of Florida, Phi Beta Kappa

Rollins College

[Neil van der Linden]

At the moment this conference is covering Goan polyphony in the Jesuit missions in Ethiopia.

[Neil van der Linden]

Four hundred years ago, orphan girls were used to facilitate the colonisation of Goa and to populate it with Portuguese people – i.e., white European settlers. Orphan girls whose parents died fighting in the war, considered ‘orphans Õrfāse king,’ were sent to Goa and married off to Portuguese men. It was promoted as a 'trade policy,' called Õrfās del Rei, meaning 'Orphans of the King.'

Today's story brings a fascinating tale of how the Portuguese crown used Õrfās del Rei as a strategy to colonise Goa. https://madrascourier.com/insight/how-the-portuguese-crown-introduced-orfas-del-rei-as-a-colonisation-strategy-in-goa/

[Carvalho]

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

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Goa-Research-Net" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to goa-research-n...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/goa-research-net/11DAB16C-D099-4A1D-ADFC-AA06B9AC8D86%40xs4all.nl.

[John de Figueiredo]

This article appears to endorse the idea that the Órfãs del Rei were sent to Goa to prevent Portuguese (European) men from marrying native Goan women and thereby perpetuate “Portuguese colonialism”. The English historian Frederick Denvers proposed this interpretation in 1894. But is this true? Most Órfãs went to Brazil, not to Goa. It is known that on one occasion on their way to Goa their Portugueses ship was attached by the Dutch who kidnapped some of them, forced them to convert to their (Protestant) faith, and married them. Some of the Órfãs married local (Non-European) rulers after those rulers converted to Catholicism. The Portuguese intermingled with the Goans and were very open to marrying them. A far more likely reason is that the Goan parents did not want their daughters to marry Europeans. In the 16th and 17th centuries it was taboo among both Goan Christians and Goan Hindus to marry outside religion, race, and caste.
John M. de Figueiredo
Sent from my iPhone

> On Apr 27, 2024, at 3:29 PM, Neil van der Linden <nv...@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>
> Four hundred years ago, orphan girls were used to facilitate the colonisation of Goa and to populate it with Portuguese people – i.e., white European settlers. Orphan girls whose parents died fighting in the war, considered ‘orphans Õrfāse king,’ were sent to Goa and married off to Portuguese men. It was promoted as a 'trade policy,' called Õrfās del Rei, meaning 'Orphans of the King.'

>
> Today's story brings a fascinating tale of how the Portuguese crown used Õrfās del Rei as a strategy to colonise Goa. https://madrascourier.com/insight/how-the-portuguese-crown-introduced-orfas-del-rei-as-a-colonisation-strategy-in-goa/
>

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Goa-Research-Net" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to goa-research-n...@googlegroups.com.

> To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/goa-research-net/E22C05C5-9C6C-49F7-AE26-A714B7C93FE2%40xs4all.nl.

[John de Figueiredo]

Typo corrected: Danvers, not Denvers.
JM de F
Sent from my iPhone

> On Apr 28, 2024, at 6:48 AM, John de Figueiredo <john...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
> This article appears to endorse the idea that the Órfãs del Rei were sent to Goa to prevent Portuguese (European) men from marrying native Goan women and thereby perpetuate “Portuguese colonialism”. The English historian Frederick Denvers proposed this interpretation in 1894. But is this true? Most Órfãs went to Brazil, not to Goa. It is known that on one occasion on their way to Goa their Portugueses ship was attached by the Dutch who kidnapped some of them, forced them to convert to their (Protestant) faith, and married them. Some of the Órfãs married local (Non-European) rulers after those rulers converted to Catholicism. The Portuguese intermingled with the Goans and were very open to marrying them. A far more likely reason is that the Goan parents did not want their daughters to marry Europeans. In the 16th and 17th centuries it was taboo among both Goan Christians and Goan Hindus to marry outside religion, race, and caste.