Despite these limitations, they proved able to create beautiful images in dim government buildings, churches and factories.

Curiel's oeuvre is made up of mostly daily life topics, which were of value to historians and other interested parties.

A few times a week, a batch of ice was delivered to the dark room, the required chemical baths to keep the proper temperature.

In 2005 Janneke van Dijk, curator of the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, found out that about 400 original glass plate negatives were stored in the depot of the Surinaams Museum in Fort Zeelandia.

[3] In 2021, two photographs by Curiel (Portrait of an Afro-Surinamese nanny with two European children and Worker's dwellings and pharmacy on the Geijersvlijt Plantation) were included in the Netherlands Photo Museum's permanent exhibition Gallery of Honour of Dutch Photography, consisting of 99 photographs.