Need help identifying African carver figure ca. 1890s

I've seen 10,000 photo's of carvers with their work......

I just don't see that here...!

We've all seen these cabinet cards with their set up props......& here what's going on , on that table is a mystery to me.....

just sayin

 

He's just a young boy. Hard to imagine he's a carver with such skill so I, for one, wouldn't assume the work is his. Looks more like a gift in a couple of layers of interesting wrap. If he were the carver, I would think he would be posed showing the piece off. Just my thoughts; others may have differing.

Debora

 

Regarding Eisenmann, just wanted to point out that although he did take photos of deformities, he also took some of theatrical performers and other interesting views. Here is one that I have in my collection. It is not in great condition, but when I bought it I didn't pay much attention to condition if I liked the image.

 

that photo is well staged with a prop that the subject makes good use of !!!!

 

I went through the inventory of Eisenmann (and Wendt) photographs on the Syracuse website that @Debora posted, but did not find another copy of this particular photograph.

More information surely lies in the inscription. But some portions are difficult to interpret, partly because it is in a foreign language. Transliteration of African names, including place names, is also extremely variable.

"Sorriah" may be more commonly written as Soraya, which is a name derived from Arabic. Usually a woman's name, this might be consistent with an origin in West Africa where Islam is a major religion. There is at least one occurrence of Soraya as a surname in the Lagunes District of Cote d'Ivoire. https://forebears.io/surnames/soraya

If the inscription follows standard western practice (which is not certain), it seems it would be in the form of - first name, last name, town or village name, larger regional name. But I have so far not been able to find corresponding geographic names.

@New Bowery - is there any additional information on the back of the photograph?

 

It's a fascinating puzzle. I wonder if there were any contemporary newspaper reporting about the subject.

Debora

 

'Leopard Boy,' born in South Africa by the photographer.

 

You are correct, Syracuse has the largest collection of digitized Eisenmann photographs.

 

Vitaligo, my mom has it from a severe sunburn as a child. We called them cow spots as a kid.