Belgian milkmaid

A carte-de-visite portrait of a Belgian woman.

An inked inscription verso in a period hand reads: 'Aug. 6th, 1867'.

Photographed by A. Calphas of Antwerp.

'The Greek photographer Athanasios Calphas arrived in Athens from Paris in late 1859 and opened a studio. He worked by himself to begin with, taking on Petros Moraitis as his assistant a little later.

'In 1860, Calphas became the first photographer to advertise lessons in photography in the Press. His stay in Athens lasted two years, after which he returned to France, opening his studio in Tourcoing Nord. Later still he moved to Antwerp and then Malines (Machelen) in Belgium, where he worked until the late 1870s. The Nicolas Calphas who had the ‘Grand Photographie Orientale’ studio in Brussels at about that time must have been his son.'

[A.X. Xanthakis, History of Greek Photography 1839-1960. Hellenic Literary and Historical Archives Society: Athens, 1988.]