This photographic portrait of a European couple was taken by German photographer Robert Lenz. This could be seen as a continuation of traditional portraiture as a privilege of the affluent, but with the sitters posing with a deliberate casualness as the wife peers over her husband’s shoulder at the book he was holding. Lenz was based in Singapore in the late 19th century, but his photographic services were very popular among elites throughout Southeast Asia. The name of his photographic studio is embossed on the card upon which the print is mounted. Such photographs were sometimes taken to be sent home to Europe, and this demand resulted in the popularity of the photography studios set up by non-Western photographers in the late 19th and early 20th century. Well-to-do families and individuals, mostly wealthy businessmen or European traders and government officials, visited such studios to have their photographs taken.
