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Portrait of a Woman along the Niger River

Image Portraits
A photograph depicting a seated woman with abdominal scarification and ivory bangles.
Portrait of a woman with abdominal cicatrization and ivory bangles. Photographed by William Henry Crosse, Royal Niger Company, c1886-1895.

A black-and-white photograph from between 1886 and 1895 depicting a seated woman posing for the camera. She is unclothed from the waist up, revealing a vertical line of abdominal cicatrization along the midline of her torso and pale markings on her cheeks. She wears thick ivory bangles on both wrists, a thin necklace, and a plaid cloth wrapped around her waist. A similar checkered textile serves as a backdrop behind her. The subject is seated on an earthen surface with dense tropical vegetation and a blurred structure in the background. The image was captured by William Henry Crosse during his tenure as Principal Medical Officer for the Royal Niger Company.

Community Notes

Onyeka Nwokike

Nov 01, 2026

This image was initially attributed to the Jones Collection because it was found in a wooden storage box, numbered C340/, featuring handwriting identified as that of G.I. Jones and a note referencing "Family groups." Subsequent analysis by the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at Cambridge corrected this attribution by matching the negative to a series of lantern slides and other plates confirmed to be the work of William Henry Crosse.

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