Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
Views of the Belgian Congo album
97.R.58
No online items
View entire collection guide
Search this collection
Table of contents
Title: Views of the Belgian Congo album
Date (inclusive): 1908-1909
Number: 97.R.58
Physical Description:
1 album
(185 photographic prints)
Repository:
The Getty Research Institute
Special Collections
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles 90049-1688
reference@getty.edu
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10020/askref
(310) 440-7390
Abstract: The album, compiled by an unidentified
colonial agent who was in the Belgian Congo from 1908 to 1909, documents one man's
experiences in the region during the first year of the newly-annexed Belgian colony's
existence. The album records the agent's journey from Antwerp to Matadi and thence up the
Congo river to his post at Yoboila (Lomami). The remainder of the album documents the
agent's daily life, local inhabitants and surroundings.
Request Materials: Request access to the physical materials
described in this inventory through the
catalog record for this
collection. Click here for the
access policy .
Language: Collection material is in French
Central Africa was largely unexplored by Westerners before Henry Morton Stanley's
expedition (1874-1878) to trace the course of the Congo river. Excited by Stanley's
discoveries, King Leopold II of Belgium, who was anxious to acquire a colony to increase the
prestige and wealth of his young country, subsequently hired Stanley to help him establish
Belgium's interests in the Congo. In 1884 escalating European rivalries for the region were
resolved when Otto von Bismark convened the Berlin Conference to partition the Congo basin.
The country of Belgium declined to participate in the colonialization of the area, leaving
Leopold to receive Belgium's portion of 905,000 miles - the lion's share of the area - for
himself. Leopold ran the Congo Free State as a privately controlled corporation with himself
as sole shareholder and chairman. His brutal exploitation of the people and the land for its
rubber, copper, and other mineral resources was exposed by British consular reports and by
the European and American press to great outcry in the early 1900s, and in 1908 Leopold's
private rule ended when the Congo was annexed to the Belgian state. Subsequently renamed the
Belgian Congo, it remained a Belgian colony until receiving sovereignty in 1960, when it
became the Republic of the Congo.
Open for use by qualified researchers.
Contact
Library Reproductions and Permissions .
Views of the Belgian Congo album, 1908-1909, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles,
Accession no. 97.R.58
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2001m14
Acquired in 1997.
Cataloged by Beth Ann Guynn in 2013.
Scope and Content of Collection
The album of 185 gelatin silver prints compiled by an unidentified colonial agent who was
in the Belgian Congo from 1908 to 1909, documents one man's experiences in the region during
the first year of the newly-annexed Belgian colony's existence when the violence perpetrated
against the indigenous Congolese and the ruthless economic exploitation of the country under
King Leopold's reign were still prevalent.
The album begins with the agent's journey from Antwerp to Matadi and includes views of
Tenerife, Sierra Leone and Leopoldville (Kinshassa), as well as scenes depicting the agent
and other travelers during the voyage. From Matadi, the album records the agent's journey up
the Congo river to Bosoko and his installation at his post at Yoboila (Lomami). A trip to
Stanleyville (Kisangani) in 1909 is recorded in two views of a ceremony at the city's
cathedral.
The remainder of the album is primarily dedicated to documenting the agent's daily life and
the lives of the Congolese locals around him. Included are views of the agent's post and
quarters, big game hunting expeditions and slain prey, and images of Tom, the agent's pet
leopard cub. The agent, a bearded man whose portrait is pasted onto the album's front
endpaper, is present in several images. There are numerous portraits of indigenous peoples,
espcially focusing on Topoke scarification, local chieftains, and warriors. Also included
are scenes of village life and life along the rivers and waterways, views of dancing and
ceremonies, and the "harvesting" of elephant tusks. Several photographs depict chained
prisioners and whippings.
The string-bound album with green percaline covers contains 185 photographic prints on 24
mounts, both recto and verso. Titles are from the French captions written below many of the
photographs. Titles devised by the cataloger are in square brackets. Also included is one
loose photograph.
In original order.
Scarification (Body marking) -- Congo (Democratic Republic)
Topoke (African people)
Big game hunting -- Congo (Democratic Republic)
Corporal punishment -- Congo (Democratic Republic)
Kisangani (Congo) -- Description and travel
Kinshasa (Congo) -- Description and travel
Congo (Democratic Republic) -- Description and travel
Sierra Leone-Description and travel
Congo River -- Description and travel
Tenerife (Canary Islands) -- Description and travel
Photographs, Original
Photograph albums -- Congo (Democratic Republic) -- 20th
century
Gelatin silver prints -- Congo (Democratic Republic) -- 20th
century