A page from an album

Family album: • Alba, 1867 • Hong Kong, 1897 • Marseille, 1900 • Paris, 1904 • Valenciennes, 1918 • Buenos Aires, 1930

From an old family album, from which we will publish a few more pages. He who composed it lived his life with humor and affection. He was an Italian, born in Alba in the Langhe, in the 1860s. He left for Bangkok as a military instructor of the Siamese army. I imagine him as the heros of Conrad’s The Shadow Line, somewhere between Singapore and Shanghai, before joining the Filipino insurgents.

He loved to posture so much, like in this picture, on the side of a friend, both dressed Chinese, in the Po-Chou studio of Hong Kong in 1897. He wears his embroidered slippers with the same nonchalance as he wore his boots. His friend wears a long braid and holds a pipe, they both have fans and round caps – but does anyone have any idea what he might be holding in the left hand?