"Group of musicians":: analysis of an orientalist photograph from the Thereza Christina Collection

Abstract

This article is about a photograph by Luigi Fiorillo, from the iconographical division of Thereza Christina Collection, kept and named by the Biblioteca Nacional (RJ), whose title is " group of musicians". This one, as well as the rest of the collection, was previously owned by the Brazilian emperor Dom Pedro II. From a critical and decolonial perspective, we seek to understand the context of its production and circulation, the aesthetic choices for its making, and the musical and artistic repertoire it represents. Music, as a theme, became recurrent throughout the nineteenth century, from the time of the European imperial conquest of Egypt. Conceptually, the article also discusses the term Orientalism and its use in approaching photographic materials that come under this context.