The John van Kessel Collection (Antwerp, 1885), a close asso - Lot 17

The John van Kessel Collection (Antwerp, 1885), a close associate of Louis Franck. In 1920, John van Kessel became chief of staff to Louis Franck (1868–1937), a lawyer from Antwerp who had become Minister of the Colonies. He remained in that position until 1924. The role was a discreet one, and the vantage point was unparalleled: a minister’s office saw a constant flow of reports from the territories, administrative files, correspondence from artists and printers—everything through which the Congo, day by day in Brussels, was transformed into paperwork and policy decisions. A native of Antwerp, educated in the city that was then Belgium’s gateway to Central Africa, van Kessel stood at the very center of this system. His collection bears the mark of this position: it blends field artifacts with office documents—what was sent and what was received. The bond between the two men extended beyond the ministry. When Louis Franck became governor of the National Bank of Belgium in 1926, van Kessel followed him and became inspector general there. Seventeen years of loyalty, until the governor’s death in 1937: the loyalty of a trusted confidant rather than merely a colleague. This explains why objects and documents so closely tied to the minister’s person remained in his possession and then passed down to his family. Literal evidence of this closeness remains: the minister’s travel trunk, made of black-painted sheet metal by Hobbs & Co. of London, stenciled with “MINISTRY OF THE COLONIES / BRUSSELS” and stamped with the initials L. F. Preserved by the cabinet secretary and later passed down through his family, it bears the signs of wear from his time in office and comes with its archival file. It is accompanied by numerous photographs of the minister and his travels, the sale of which is reserved for future auctions. The sculptures form the first section of the collection, which is cohesive and substantial. A large eastern Songye female figure of Luba influence, with cascading hair and a mouth featuring a latticework of teeth, retains beneath its base a contemporary pencil inscription noting its acquisition: “Tanganyika / Moero.” A male statuette with a receptacle at the top closely resembles three Luba pieces from the Royal Museum for Central Africa—collected in Katanga and added to the collection before 1920—and belongs to the family of Kabeja-type figures studied by François Neyt and Bernard de Grunne. A Kongo pair from the same maker, with teeth filed to a point and striated headdresses from the Yombe and Sundi regions, and a Mangbetu trumbash prestige knife with a sickle-shaped blade complete this collection from the first third of the 20th century. For the collector, the combination of these criteria—age of acquisition, period inscription, comparable museum pieces, unbroken family provenance, and preserved archival records—places these works in the most sought-after category on the market. The documentary record matches the objects in richness and is exceptional. The archive of the 1923 Vloors series traces, step by step, the production of a series of twelve colonial stamps involving three key figures: Émile Vloors, the designer; Baron Gaston Stalins, the European representative of the American Banknote Company in Paris, responsible for engraving and printing; and van Kessel, the intermediary between the artist, the printer, and the administration. Vloors and Stalins were friends, and their correspondence goes beyond the official tone: the exchange of proofs and discussions of color choices are interwoven with the candor, humor, and confidences that only a long-standing friendship can foster. Two hundred fifty-two original proofs, covering the twelve denominations from 5 centimes to 10 francs—most of them hand-annotated—accompany some seventy documents from 1923 to 1925. Here we see a color proposed, rejected, then reconsidered; a face value moved; and we hear the tone—that of a friend rather than a supplier—become sharp: “ this Vloors affair, which threatens to be ruinous for everyone,” wrote Stalins in December 1923. That this archive was preserved intact by a man who went on to become inspector general of the issuing institute—a true expert in printed documents—is no coincidence; it is the official imagery of the Belgian Congo—Ivory, Rubber, Palm Oil—captured at the very moment it was taking shape, and preserved by the man who had witnessed every stage of its development. Assembled a century ago in close proximity to the colonial authorities and never dispersed, the John van Kessel collection appears here for the first time. Lots 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 54, 68, 69, 70.