A fine Orientalist album including studies of tribesmen with camels and buffalo in the desert; Arab women fetching water and bathing at a pool; street scenes with groups of men and boys posed playing board games; street vendors, some serving food; an Arab wedding; men smoking and drinking coffee; water-carriers at a well; a barber's shop; children with musical instruments; women on donkeys; family groups; and eleven individual portraits, one of an African youth. The majority of the subjects would appear to be Egyptian with the street scenes possibly photographed in Cairo.

Some of the photographs, particularly the more complex groups, resemble the work of Carlo Naya, who was based in Egypt in 1876, making genre and portrait photographs. One of the female models appears in other portraits by him. It is possible the album, with it's Italian binding, may have been bought from Naya, and other photographers' work included. The absence of views and the specialisation in figure studies would suggest that the album may have been compiled for an artist.