Oops! A Beautiful Picture of Jaffa Gate, But Something's Wrong

Jaffa Gate, Jerusalem (credit: George Eastman House)

The Library of Congress archives houses 22,000 pictures of Jerusalem and the Holy Land taken by the American Colony photographers between the 1890s and 1946. 

But, we recently discovered more of the American Colony photographs in the George Eastman House collection.  We were particularly impressed with a collection of "transparencies ... with applied color."  What we call today "slides" were shown with a lantern. The color was painted in.

Why might the picture look strange to viewers of this blog?  Because we recently published the picture in black-and-white in a feature on Jewish shopkeepers in the Old City, but that picture was not reversed as this color one is.

Jaffa Gate The Library of Congress dates this picture
 between 1898 and 1946. Based on the carriages outside the
gate, the photo was probably taken before the breaching
of the Jaffa Gate in 1898 and creation of a road.
 The American Colony's Elijah Meyers was a photographer
prior to the creation of the Colony's photographic
department  in 1898 and he may have taken this picture.
Look at the shop adjacent to the gate in
the accompanying enlargement. 

Enlargement: The shop is a millinery store selling hats. The men
 inside and outside are Jewish merchants or customers. The
signs show hat models and a store name in Hebrew.