Bidspirit auction | [HISTORY] - Love in Uniform:

[HISTORY] - Love in Uniform: Gender and Identity in WWI Italy - A set of 5 photos depicting a woman in uniform, Italy, World War I. Five Silver Gelatin Photographs. Large-format photographs, each of diameter of mm 170, the others 223x163 mm (the rectangular) and 227x128 mm.(oval), all of them in its own large period window ‘passepartout’ tied with ribbon, three different images, two are repeats. The subject looks decidedly female in face and form, is dressed in a World War I Italian Army [Regio Esercito] grey-green 1909 uniform, with the rank of Major (one star within a rectangle); she is fully dressed with hat, jacket with pockets, jodhpurs, belt, crop, and leather sash; in one pose she is pictured alone, in the other two poses she is accompanied by a woman in a dress, shown with her arm wrapped around her shoulder, and leaning over the back of a rocking chair in which the other woman is seated; the woman in uniform wears rings, at the ring fingers of both hands, almost alluding to an intimate bond between them. The story of these pictures is unknown. Whether the subject was allowed to serve as a woman (women were not admitted at all in Italian military academies at that date), or whether she was accepted as a man remains a mystery for now. Perhaps an early LGBT 'hidden' coming out Some oxidation. (5 pieces in the lot)