Bedchamber of the Late Bey of Tunis, Kasr-el-Said, Tunisia

From the archive

This photochrome print, from circa 1899, is part of “Views of Architecture and People in Tunisia” from the catalog of the Detroit Photographic Company. It shows the chamber of the bey of Tunis in the Kassar-Said Palace in Tunis. Baedeker’s The Mediterranean: Handbook for Travelers (1911) described the palace as “a château of the bey” to which admittance by tourists was not allowed. Muhammad III as-Sadiq (1813–82) ruled Tunisia from September 1859 until his death in October 1882. He was succeeded by Ali Muddat ibn al-Husayn (1817–1902), who ruled from 1882 until his death in June 1902. The Detroit Photographic Company was launched as a photographic publishing firm in the late 1890s by Detroit businessman and publisher William A. Livingstone, Jr. and photographer and photo-publisher Edwin H. Husher. They obtained the exclusive rights to use the Swiss "Photochrom" process for converting bla