View inside the trading post of Oloff & Co. at Lome, Togoland Protectorate, West Africa, c.1890.

Albumen print photograph, 100 x 140 mm, on original card mount, 185 x 220 mm, fully contemporary inscription in ink below the image: ‘T. Oloff & Co. / Factorei / Lome’; a very strong print with excellent clarity, in good condition; the mount is clean and stable.

The Togoland Protectorate (Schutzgebiet Togo) was administered by Germany from 1884 to 1914. It was the smallest of her African colonies, sandwiched between the British Gold Coast and French Dahomey, and – like these other colonial powers in the aforementioned territories – Germany conducted in Togo an exploitative, labour-intensive plantation agriculture based primarily on coffee, cotton, and cocoa farming. This produce was exported back to Germany by long-established trading firms such as Oloff & Co.