[TAHITI] A young Tahitian woman with her European husband, c 1870

Albumen print photograph, carte de visite format (100 x 62 mm), no photographer's imprint. Top right corner missing, surface soiling, but the image – in particular the facial features of the sitters – has retained its clarity and detail.

The woman is dressed in the attire typically worn by members of the Tahitian female aristocracy – she is quite possibly of royal descent. It was certainly not uncommon in the nineteenth century for a European man to marry a Tahitian woman of high standing, the most famous examples being the successful merchants John Brander and Alexander Salmon, whose clan became a powerful trading dynasty in the eastern Pacific through a combination of business acumen and intermarriage with the Tahitian nobility.