The central figure in this poster is based on a portrait photograph by Javanese photographer Kassian Cephas. While the figure and her accoutrements are obviously modelled on Cephas’s original, Hahn’s composition is also informed by his background in the decorative arts. The figure is framed by a richly carved wooden structure which has been identified as a Javanese gong standard, and the picture space between this frame and the figure is filled with a repeating pattern of palm trees, more graphic than representative, which serve more as a token of the tropics than as any realistic reference. Whilst Albert Hahn Sr. draws heavily on the photograph by Kassian Cephas, it is likely that Hahn knew the work as an illustration in a general text describing the colonies rather than in the context of Cephas’s own remarkable career.
