This talk will explore a series of photos taken in 1882 by the French photographer and consul to Sudan, Louis Vossion. Charged with producing a volume on the Sudanese population, Vossion tried to portray who were the typical races. Only a few years after the volume was published, the Mahdiyya had overtaken Khartoum. By the time they were first seen in pictures in France, many of Vossion’s subjects were dead, in prison or in exile.