10 unique 19th century postcards from Taus Makhacheva’s personal archive as seen in the artist’s book Types du Caucase.

Each postcard represents a “pittoresque” group from various tribes, families, nationalities or representatives of diverse professions of people from the Caucausus, presented in a style of colonial pictorialism emblematic of the exotization perpetuated by Russian/French speaking elites of the time.
Here, the artist has handwritten distinct texts by different writers, politicians and historians from the beginning and middle of the 20th century, depicting their various views on the Caucasus:

“Two daughters (the youngest was about 11 years old and was a perfect beauty) tried to serve me and tried to do their best. The eldest began to take off my shoes. First I was against it as I considered it to be too mean for her… but my Tatar host explained that if I didn’t let her do what she wanted then it would go against the rules of their hospitality…”

Abri de la Motre describing how he was received in Northern Caucasus, 1711 – 1712