Alexine Tinne was special. Educated in the best circles of The Hague, with or despite her father’s wealth accumulated on slave trade, she grew up riding horses, playing the piano and becoming a “proper” 19th century lady. After the early passing of her father when she was 10 years old, Alexine became the richest lady in The Netherlands. She started photography in The Hague and Scheveningen and started to explore the world with her mother and aunt at age 26. North Africa became a new territory to explore and to photography. Her endeavours of reach the Tuaregs came to a halt in 1869 when she was murdered. She left behind her ethnographic collections and photographs, now at the National Archive and Municipal Archive of The Hague. The exhibition presented at the Historic museum of The Hagues provides an overview of her life and work, in the form of a dialogue between past and present, between two female photographers, Alexine and Dutch photographer, Dagmar van Weeghel, who sought to approach Tinne’s life and legacy by recreating her and her settings with her series “Nader tot Tinne”. Dagmar’s photographs will be the subject of another post.
