Lot 64

Lot 64

Captivating cabinet card identified on the back in Spanish, which reads Normal School of Physics, Jalapa, which is in Veracruz, Mexico. According to Wikipedia, “Enrique Conrado Rébsamen Egloff (1857-1904) was a Mexican educator born in Kreuzlingen, Switzerland on February 8, 1857, and whose educational reforms decisively influenced Mexico’s current educational system. He came to Mexico to take charge of the education of the children of a merchant in the city of León. He then lived in Mexico City, where he befriended important thinkers of the time, including Ignacio Manuel Altamirano. He devoted himself to researching various questions of linguistics, history and sociology, as well as writing essays for a newspaper in the capital. The then President of the Republic, Porfirio Díaz, was interested in Rébsamen’s work and recommended him to Veracruz and Juan de la Luz Enríquez, who managed a large-scale state educational project. In 1886 Governor Enríquez commissioned Rébsamen to create a normal school in Xalapa and an annexed experimental school, which began operating the following year with twenty-five students. We assume this was part of the original school. 
The room is quite intriguing and presents a wonderful studio of the sciences. The skeleton and anatomy figure immediately draw your attention with the anatomy man having a bent arm, finger pointing to the sky. To the right seems to be possibly a conductor for electrostatics. We see cabinets filled with scientific equipment and in the back cabinet there are two skulls and what appears to be a humongous ear appearing through the left bottom glass! You could explore this image under magnification for quite some time. 
The photo is in very good condition with strong tones and contrast. There is some lighter wear as seen with four tiny holes in the corners of the mount where it was displayed at one time.