Oblong Folio (ca. 28 x 37.5 cm or 11 x 14 ¾ in). 6 grey double paper leaves. 34 gelatin silver photographs, with 18 large ones from ca. 13.5 x 20 cm (5 ¼ x 8 in) to 12 x 15 cm (6 x 4 ¾ in) and the rest ca. 11 x 7.5 cm (4 ¼ x 3 in). All photos with period pencil captions on mounts (some captions relate to two photos). Period-style green half morocco with cloth boards and gilt-tooled decorative borders. Mounts are slightly age-toned and with minor losses or tears on extremities not affecting images; one photo previously removed from the album, a few photos mildly faded, but overall a very good album of interesting photos.

An interesting and rare collection of gelatin silver photographs of the French colony of Dahomey in West Africa (present-day Benin), most likely compiled by a French associate of the local “Compagnie de l’Ouémé-Dahomey.”

Six photos show the colonial capital Porto-Novo, including the Governor’s Palace, a customs building, a city cathedral, a Catholic mission, loading almonds onto a steamship at the city wharf, and Porto-Novo environs. Five images of the main colonial port of Cotonou show the pier with a small boat; river steamboats at Cotonou (the caption identifies one of them as “the gunboat Onyx”); portraits of Krumen (mariners of the Kru people) on the wharf, “Dorso” (likely the wharf foreman and his wife), and French “agents des maisons Fabre et Armandou” and an entrepreneur Mr. Meurier.

Fourteen photographs of the colony of Dahomey show a trading post in Dogbo, views of a large gathering in Adja-Ouéré (currently a town in south-eastern Benin), “the king’s hut” - possibly part of the Royal Palaces of Abomey; native villages, and portraits of their inhabitants. There is also a photograph of people rowing dugout canoes in Ivory Coast and a view of Île de Gorée, Senegal.

Six photographs show the interior of a booth of the “la Compagnie de l’Ouémé-Dahomey” at the Exposition Universelle of 1900 in Paris, showing photographic views of the colony, native tools, weapons, embroidery, and masks. One photograph shows the compiler at the exposition (“Leroy et moi à l’Exposition de 1900”). Additionally, there is a portrait of French colonists in Dahomey posing in a baobab tree, possibly with the compiler.

Overall, an attractive collection of lively original photographs showing Benin during the early years of French colonial rule.

“French Dahomey, officially the Colony of Dahomey and Dependencies, was a French colony and part of French West Africa from 1894 to 1958.” (Wikipedia).