Carte-de-visite (CDV) photograph of an African American contraband child taken by Gutekunst, who operated a gallery in Philadelphia. The young boy, who wears an unforgettable expression, appears dressed in ragged clothing with holes, rips, and tears on his jacket, dirty trousers, and a worse-for-wear wheel-style cap. Note how his arm is popping out of a jacket sleeve that split along the seam. This image likely depicts an enslaved person who escaped to Union lines during the Civil War, many of whom were utilized as servants and laborers for the Union Army. They were commonly referred to during the period as “contrabands”.
Fine overall condition as shown. Minor indentation above the subject’s head, corners clipped for album insertion.


[African Americana, African-American History, Slave, Slavery, Abolition, Liberia] [Prints, Engravings, Lithographs, Ephemera]. [Slave, Abolition, African Americana, Civil War, Prints] [African American History, Black Americana] [Abraham Lincoln, Union, Confederate, Frederick Douglass, Abolitionist, 13th Amendment, Emancipation Proclamation, Gettysburg, John Brown, Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Barack, Obama] [Daguerreotype, Ambrotype, Tintype, CDV, Albumen, carte-de-visite, Salt print, Cabinet Card]