Old Photographic

Some rare early 1900's Gypsy photographs!

Although most of the photo album these photos came from had generic portraits of a woman who was dressed in early 1900's clothing, I was very pleasantly surprised to find these rare turn of the 20th century photos of a Gypsy family and their encampment of horse drawn wagons in the back of the album.

The images below represent the best of the album and I think you'll agree that artistic quality of the portraiture is outstanding on the majority of the photos.

A young Gypsy woman wearing every day clothing

The first photograph in this article is of a young Gypsy woman who seemed slightly annoyed, but posed patiently for the anonymous photographer.

She is wearing what one would expect to see on a Gypsy of days gone by. I particularly like this image because she looks so comfortable in front of the camera and also for the artistic style of photography.

The photographer really had a keen sense of realism that is reminiscent of some of the work of Eugene Smith and other great photographers of the 1950's.

An impromptu photo of Gypsy children

Another of my favorite images from this photo album is this photo of three Gypsy children because the image is just so fantastically real.

Upon close inspection one can clearly see the grubby, soiled clothing, filthy faces, and greasy unwashed hair they are sporting. This is not a comment on the clenliness of Gypsy people, but the photo clearly shows what must have been the very hard life they lived.

Vintage photographs this bleak and down-to-earth are rare and I come by them only once in a great while. I get very excited when I find great photos like this and I count myself very lucky to have found this photo

Another great photograph of a young Gypsy woman and and her younger sibling

This photo of a young Gypsy girl with her younger sibling is really cool and gives a good impression of the Gypsy clothing of the period.

Like the girl above she is also wearing what one would expect to see on a Gypsy of days gone by. Her younger sibling really doesn't look too happy to be posing for the camera, but the girl seems happy enough to be photographed.

This is another really great ethnic photo that shows the everyday life of a Gypsy family in the early 1900's.

A Gypsy encampment

Living in tents and moving around in horse drawn carts must have been a very difficult life.

Looking closely at this photo one can see a scene painted on one of the wagons. Could this Gypsy family have been Carnival folk? If there were only more photos of this type in the album...

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