Early views of Brazil by Guilherme Gaensly

We acquired before the summer a large group of early Latin-American photographs, most of them titled in German. The album includes a interesting group of views of the state of Pernambuco, less travelled and photographed than Rio de Janeiro. The albumen prints are all attributed to Guilherme Gaensly (1843-1928) and dated from the late 1870’s to the mid 1880’s.

The port of Pernambuco, attributed to Guilherme Gaensly

Born Wilhem Gänsli in 1843 in Switzerland, Gaensly moved to Brazil in 1848 when his father opened a cotton export company in the city of Salvador de Bahia. In the early 1870’s, Gaensly worked in the Pernambuco studio of German photographer Alberto Henschel, at the time the most successful photographer in Brazil.

In 1875, Gaensly opened his own studio in Bahia, and in 1882 partnered with Rodolpho Lindemann to create the Gaensly-Lindemann studio. Around 1894, Gaensly moved to Sao Paolo, where he lived until his death in 1928.