The French photographer and naturalist Jacques-Philippe Potteau is known for his portraits of international dignitaries, soldiers, and visitors to Paris. Unlike other ethnographic photographers, Potteau eschewed decorative backgrounds and props that would place sitters in a world of colonial imagination. Instead, he photographed his subjects against a plain backdrop. The portraits, with names and short descriptions of their sitters’ ethnic origins, are important examples of French colonial ethnography. Despite the rigid formality of the front and profile views and the coldness of the textual description, the beautifully rendered, richly detailed photographs transcend their ethnographic purpose.