Who posed in the Photographia Vicente studio 135 years ago (completed this month!). The so-called gunboat was built in 1861, during the American Civil War and landed for the first time in Madeira in 1863, when it was on the trail of the confederate gunboat “CSS Alabama”. The following year, on June 19, the “USS Kearsarge” managed to sink its target, north of the French coast, in the battle of Cherbourg. The Union gunboat was also commissioned for a few more European missions, and at the time these sailors posed for these portraits, she was on a service commission in the Mediterranean, northern European seas and West Africa coast (between 21 August 1883 and December 1, 1886). The vessel sank on January 20, 1894, when it hitted a reef in the Caribbean Sea, during a mission in Nicaragua. In the process of recovering salvage, an unexploded shell from “CSS Alabama” was housed at its stern.

Credits: Museu de Fotografia da Madeira - Atelier Vicente's.

PHOTOGRAPHIA VICENTE | 1885-06-0210.7 x 8.3 cm | Simple negative, glass | Gelatin and silver salts
John Kutchins's portrait | MFM-AV, Inv. VIC / 713

Henry Randolph portrait | MFM-AV, Inv. VIC / 714

John Power portrait | MFM-AV, Inv. VIC/715

W. C. Clifford portrait | MFM-AV, Inv. VIC/718