This gypsy-looking woman is a Moorish lady from Algeria. Like many of the now public-domain images from the 19th century, she was presented as representative of her ‘type’. Her striped skirt is a good six to ten inches from the ground — very practical in the dusty environment of Algeria, but something one would not see among women of Europe or the United States in that era (ca. 1880s). Her blouse was separate from the skirt, a novelty not common among European ladies of fashion until the 1890s.

The photographers are identified as the Neurdein fréres of Paris. The Neurdein brothers were Etienne (born 1832, died after 1915) and Louis Antonin (born 1846, died after 1915). They began publishing photographs in the 1860s, and took images in France and the French colonies in Africa, as well as French Canada. Their logo in the 1870s and 1880s was a monogram of the intertwined letters N and E, suggesting that Etienne, the elder brother, was the leading partner. Many of their negatives, like this one, are identified with the letters ‘ND’. In the early 1900s they became major publishers of picture post cards.