Untitled (Semi-Circle of Children, Central Girl Dressed as an Angel Holding the Baby Jesus)
Andrés and Francisco Hernández
1914
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Early Modern costa rica
Andrés and Francisco Hernández
1914
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
You see thirty-five kids arranged in a half-circle, one girl dressed like an angel holding a baby, two others at her feet posing like a bride and groom. This isn’t just a snapshot—it’s a staged photo from a Costa Rican studio in the 1910s. The brothers who took it ran a bookstore and a photography shop, and they turned a simple pageant into something almost like a painting. The kids look stiff, but the setup feels intentional, like a mix of theater and religion. Look up more photos from Costa Rica in the early 1900s to see how people documented their lives back then.
