Maison malgache à Tamatave [Malagasy house in Toamasina]

In 1863, the French Government—encouraged by official overtures from Madagascar’s recently elected ruler, Radama II, and with sights set on a colonial outpost in the Indian Ocean—sent expeditionary photographer Désiré Charnay to the island country off the coast of East Africa. By the time Charnay arrived in August, however, Radama had been assassinated and the friendship treaty with France annulled. The main outcome of the abortive three-month mission was Charnay’s photographic documentation of the island and its inhabitants. Along with striking, often proto-scientific images of indigenous peoples and plant life, Charnay also captured the island’s unique architecture, characterized by rectangular houses raised on low piles, like the one seen in this photograph. Here, a Malagasy hut with a palm-thatched roof and woven bamboo walls serves as the backdrop for an impromptu, casual group portrait: villagers from Toamasina (Tamatave in French) congregate and return the gaze of the European and his curious camera.