Junior, Christiano

José Christiano de Freitas Henriques Junior (Ilha das Flores, Azores Islands, Portugal 1832 - Asunción, Paraguay 1902), known as Christiano Junior, was one of the most important photographers in Argentina in the 19th century. Born in Portugal, he emigrated to Brazil in 1855, where he began working as a photographer. Probably in the early 1860s, he moved to Rio de Janeiro and joined Fernando Antônio de Miranda at the Photographia do Commercio studio. Between 1866 and 1875, he was a partner of Bernardo José Pacheco in the firm Christiano Jr. & Pacheco, in the same city. During this time, he portrayed people of African origin, whether enslaved or freed, focusing on facial features or simulating their professional activities in the studio. In addition to these images, his workshop marketed portraits on glass (ambrotype), reproductions of engravings, landscapes for stereoscopes, enlarged photographs on handkerchiefs, porcelain, and ivory, as well as visiting cards of monarchs, military figures, literati, and others. In 1866, he won the bronze medal at the National Exhibition of Rio de Janeiro. By the late 1860s, he had moved to Buenos Aires, where his businesses flourished, and he even maintained two studios simultaneously. He received a gold medal at the National Exhibition of Córdoba in 1871 and at the Scientific Exhibition of Buenos Aires in 1876. In 1876 and 1877, he published two editions of the albums "Vistas y Costumbres de la Republica Argentina" (Views and Customs of the Argentine Republic). By the late 1870s, he sold his establishment and his collection of negatives to the English photographer Alejandro S. Witcomb (1835 - 1905).