RARE PHOTO COLLECTION

The National Library in Cape Town has a collection of 43 catalogued old portraits of black South Africans, the Grey Ethnological Album. They were taken in South Africa and Botswana by a German anthropologist, Gustav Theodor FRITSCH (1838–1927), for two books that he wrote - "Drie Jahre in Sud-Afrika. Reise-skizzen nach Notizen des Tagesbuchs zusammengestellt (Three Years in South Africa: Travel sketches compiled from notes in a journal), published in 1868, and "Die Eingeborenen Sud-Afrika’s ethnogtaphiseh und anatomisch beschreiben (The Natives of South Africa anatomically and ethnographically described), published in 1872. He left Germany in 1863 and spent three years in southern Africa. Not only was he a physician and anthropologist, but also a photographer.

The collection was discovered by Prof. Keith DIETRICH of Stellenbosch University while working on his doctorate in the 1990s, researching South African travel illustrations from the 16th to 19th centuries. He eventually found six albums at the Berlin Museum, where he scanned them onto 36 CDs. This work was put on display recently at the Sasol Art Museum in Stellenbosch. The 220 portraits that were found feature 113 individuals. The exhibition is also now available in a book - An Eloquent Picture Gallery: the SA Portrait Photographs of Gustav Theodor Fritsch, 1863-1865, published by Jacana Media.

SAVING PAPERS, BOOKS AND PHOTOS

With recent floods in KwaZulu-Natal, family treasures have been lost. Here's some advice on how to salvage documents and photographs. Rinse the items with clean water as soon as possible, to get rid of silt and mud. It is crucial to completely dry the items as quickly as possible. Photographs should be removed from frames. Books and papers can be dried where air is circulating. Place plain paper towels in-between the pages and change as they become saturated. To dry photographs that have been professionally developed, place wax paper in-between each photograph as they are drying, or lay the photographs out individually. Photographs may curl if dried in this manner, but can be flattened later. Small books can be stood on end on a flat surface with the pages fanned open to air dry. Books and magazines with glossy paper must be opened so that every page remains separated while drying. Continue to dry items at least 24 hours beyond the point at which they seem dry to touch.

When items cannot be dealt with immediately, wrap each book in plastic or stack papers no more than 3 cm high and freeze. Photographs should be isolated between layers of wax paper before freezing. Items can be thawed at your convenience until the pages or photographs can be separated without tearing and then dried in the above manner.