Group Portrait with Igbo Masquerade Headdress at Fort Salisbury
A black-and-white albumen print photograph depicting a staged group of approximately eight men in an outdoor tropical setting with dense foliage. The group includes subjects standing, seated, and kneeling, with several men wearing light-colored, long-sleeved collared tunics and two wearing dark, cylindrical headgear. Two men seated on the ground hold drums, and an Igbo masquerade headdress with circular features and carved ocular cavities rests on the ground in front of a drum. The image exhibits chemical degradation and fading in the central region. It was taken at Fort Salisbury in Degema, a Kalabari town established after the dissolution of New Calabar following nineteenth-century civil conflicts.
Community Notes
Onyeka Nwokike
Sep 03, 2026
Albums Af,A46 and Af,A47, held by the British Museum, originally comprised 176 photographs documenting indigenous and European settlements, trading stations, roads, Christian cemeteries, and portraits. Degema, the location of Fort Salisbury, is also referred to as Consulate. Related imagery in the same collection includes views of factory buildings beside a river bank and a portrait of a European man wearing American dress.
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