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(CETEWAYO) BRUTON, James E.
Cabinet portrait of Cetewayo.
Highly unusual portrait of the Zulu king in captivity. Having stayed close to his army until its defeat at Ulundi, Cetewayo fled north pursued by two separate search-parties of the British Army, both desperate to gain the acclaim for having captured the king. He finally surrendered to Major R.J.C. Marter of the 1st King's Dragoon Guards on August 28 1879, at a homestead in the remote Ngome Forest belonging to one of his prime minister chief Mnyamana's men. On September 4 he embarked from Port Durnford on HMS Natal to exile in the Cape. From September 15 he was held in the Castle in Cape Town, being moved in February 1881 to the Oude Molen farm on the Cape Flats, finally sailing to England in August 1882. Cetewayo was certainly photographed on board Natal - images reproduced in Christopher Wilkinson-Latham, Uniforms & Weapons of the Zulu War, p. 76 and Ian Knight and Ian Castle, The Zulu War, Then and Now, p. 205 - and further images have been tentatively located to the Castle, such as that reproduced in Ian Knight, Brave Men's Blood, p.190. What can be said with certainty is that photographs of Cetewayo from this period are uncommon, and we have been unable to trace another copy of this particular image. James Edward Bruton established his first photographic studio in Port Elizabeth in 1858, moving to Cape Town in 1874 and working there until 1897 when he emigrated to the Isle of Man. (Bull and Denfield, Secure the Shadow, pp. 189-90)
Original photograph (151 × 102 mm) mounted on printed card mount (164 × 105 mm). Image evenly faded to pale sepia, mount a little rubbed, subject's name - "Cetawayo" - added in ink in a contemporary hand beneath the image, but overall very good.
