Albumen print in carte de visite format. Barghash bin Said (1837–88) was the second sultan of Zanzibar, following the division of Said bin Sultan’s territories into their Zanzibari and Omani components after his death in 1856. Barghash ruled Zanzibar from 1870 until his death in 1888. During his reign he signed an anti-slave trade treaty with Britain (1870) and saw his sultanate fall under the increasing control of Germany as the European scramble for Africa gathered pace, although ultimately, under the terms of an Anglo-German treaty, Zanzibar became a British protectorate..
This photograph, or carte de visite, was taken when Barghash visited London in 1875.