Between the Covers

Hardcover. Oblong octavo. Measuring 10½" x 7¾". Morocco album titled in gilt on the front board: "Náš domov v Mexiku. 1895. [Our Home in Mexico]." Album contains 52 gelatin silver photographs, each image is 7½" x 4½", and each is captioned in Czech. A trifle rubbed at the extremities, the album is near fine, the images are fine.

An excellent photographic album kept by a Czech chemist who specialized in the production of dynamite (his business card is laid in to the album describing himself as "Chimiste de la Dynamite Nobel") who had emigrated to Mexico from Prague. From the photographic evidence in the album it appears that Jelinek settled somewhere in central Mexico and established a chemical laboratory specializing in explosives, presumably in support of the mining trades. The domestic photographs are quite interesting and illustrate the European furnishings of an established well-to-do household. They also include some striking portrait images of the couple transformed from stodgy European fashions to classic Mexican finery complete with silk rebozo for the lady and a sombrero for the gentleman. Also included are rooftop panoramas of the unmistakably Mexican town (although it is unidentified). Other images include local domestic help, and one image of a map of Mexico on the wall.

There is a section of the album devoted to the makeshift explosives laboratory that appears to occupy the upper floors of a building, probably the building within which they were domiciled. An additional loose, boudoir-size cabinet photograph by R. Barajas depicts Jelinek's grave, indicating that he died in Mexico on 1 October 1897. The images are of excellent quality, and useful in illustrating the lives of the expatriate Czech couple living in Mexico in the late 19th Century.

Item #400914