The collection of MET negatives initiated by Romulus Vuia was also enriched by some of his collaborators. Among them is William Albert Denis Galloway - engineer, naval officer and British painter who in 1926 began to photograph various aspects of the community life in Pădurenii Hunedoarei. It is also the case of the negative made by Denis Galloway in 1926, in Alun village, Bunila area, Hunedoara county. The image shows a large wooden cross, with arms which extend beyond the perimeter of a circle, sculpted with geometric motifs: rosette, wolf teeth, Xs. The cross is covered with two pieces of planks which unite in the shape of an angle, having a small wooden cross on top. The cross is placed in front of the wooden fence of a household, both being erected on a stone foundation. The wooden entrance gate, framed by supporting carved pillars, is placed on the side of the cross, and it has a shingled roof and geometric, perforated decorative elements.

Next to the cross, there is a little girl, dressed up in clothes specific to the area: long shirt made of house-woven cloth, with wide sleeves starting from the collar and ending with “fodori” (wrinkled wrists), with decoration made of geometric motifs arranged in three main fields: on the narrow collar; on the chest, along the mouth of the shirt, compartmentalized into squares and on the sleeves where it forms a compact rectangle. In the middle, it has a waist belt woven in longitudinal stripes, which fixes the black house-woven “catrinza”, without ornamentation, bordered with small black corners.

The cliché, registered with title “Cross”, inventory no. 348, is made in the silver gelatin-bromide technique on glass support, having dimensions of 9 cm x 12 cm.

Photo: the MET archive