Johann Georg Widmann and David Asante

Founded in 1815, the German Mission Society, later the Basel Evangelical Missionary Society, comprised members from many different Protestant denominations. I believe the two men seen here are the Reverend Johann Georg Widmann and his personal assistant David Asante, both Lutherans. Born in 1834 at Akuropon in the area then known as the Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana) David began his education as a houseboy to the Basel missionaries but later travelled to Basel and trained there as missionary himself between 1857 and 1862.

An inked inscription recto in the lower margin gives a bible reference: 'But Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces, took all the remnant of Judah, that were returned from all nations, whither they had been driven, to dwell in the land of Judah' (Jeremiah 43:5).

Photographed by Johann Bucher of Basel in Switzerland.