Telo (v podobo) ujeto

Abstract

In a private collection in Nova Gorica, Slovenia, two photographs from the beginning of the twentieth century have been preserved that are interesting as both sociological evidence and documentation of the history of photography; specifically, that of two photography studios: one in Rijeka, Croatia, and the other in the faraway Egypt. The persons in these photos are “bodies frozen in time,” but at the same time they are “holders of lives.” They offer an insight into their individual lifestyles and, by applying appropriate methods, they unveil history at the “micro” level. This paper discusses the “vocation” of a wet nurse in Alexandria (born in 1877), one of numerous women from the Gorizia region that left their homeland to earn their living in a faraway country out of economic necessity. The focus is on the issue of her body, which, in the case of the earlier photograph taken on the occasion of her wedding, serves as a clothes-hanger for a fashionable dress, whereas the second photograph was taken after she had been forced to offer her body to the “labor market,” receiving wages in return for having weaned her own child and going to Alexandria to suckle the baby of rich parents there. Along with this bitter central theme, the creators of the two photographs are also studied: the older photo was taken in 1895/96 in Rijeka by Ilario Carposio (1852–1921), who received several international awards for his trade, which he also documented on the verso of the photograph. The second photo was taken at the Fettel & Bernard studio in Alexandria. By a strange coincidence, both the Alexandria wet nurse (in 1906/07) and, a decade earlier (in 1896), the Greek poet Constantin P. Cavafy (1863–1933) were photographed in the same studio, posed next to the same studio requisite, which demonstrates that people of both upper and lower classes could meet in these studios.