CONGO (DRC), INDEPENDENT STATE OF CONGO, "COMMISSION OF INQU - Lot 58

CONGO (DRC), INDEPENDENT STATE OF CONGO, "COMMISSION OF INQUIRY," 1903–1907 An important photographic album containing 61 vintage silver and citrate prints, documenting in particular the 1904 visit to Leopoldville by the International Commission of Inquiry. The album features a photograph captioned “Commission of Inquiry, Leo, October 30, 1904,” taken at the time of the International Commission of Inquiry’s arrival in Leopoldville to examine the regime of the Independent State of the Congo—a major episode in its history and a subject rarely documented by private photography. The provenance is linked to the judicial circles of the Independent State: a portrait of Judge Gianpietri in full regalia in Leopoldville (October 1904), the steamer *Ville de Bruxelles* with a handwritten note listing the court clerk and passengers (November 1903), and a postcard from December 1907 addressed to Mr. F. Grenade (?), State Prosecutor in Stanleyville, franked with a canceled 10-centime Mols stamp, of philatelic interest. There is also a fine series of about ten portraits of Congolese women seated on a veranda, of remarkable compositional quality, reminiscent of studio photography. Various sizes mounted on the pages of a reused school notebook from the École Moyenne de l’État (label dated 1907), most captioned in French in pencil, several annotated on the reverse, and some numbered. The collection documents two trips. The first, from 1903 to 1905, covers Leopoldville and Stanley Pool (cataracts and waterfalls, rapids, the avenue of acacia trees at the S.A.B. in Kinshasa, threshing maize, shipyard with the hull of the steamer Singatini (?) three days before its launch, Stanley Pool train station with a train from the Congo Railway), the river and its outposts (Irebu, Vieux Pimu (?), Lukolela, Bombinda, Yumbi, Basoko, Isangi, Yakusu, Yambuya on the Aruwimi, Chief Badjoko’s canoes), Stanleyville (fishing at the rapids, the Tshopo Falls, the Stanleyville-Ponthierville Railroad, Saint-Gabriel Mission, Romée’s farm (?)), and the Kasai (Lusambo in 1904: Bradfer (?) column toward Likoto, brickworks, dance, settlement, and Bakuba witch doctor, Lupaka—former chief Mutétéla, indigenous tomb). The second trip, in 1907, headed east (Kivu, Cabambari (?), Calembelembé), including a handwritten note regarding Chief Nja Gesy (?) and the White Fathers’ mission, annotated “A memory of a country difficult to travel through, but very beautiful,” and the return voyage aboard the steamer Flandre. The cover shows signs of wear and soiling; the pages are partially unbound; some prints are sun-faded or yellowed; nevertheless, the collection as a whole is cohesive and offers great documentary value. Note: The three photo albums presented in lots [No. 57], [no. 58], and [no. 59] come from the same family collection and were compiled by the same author, a civil servant of the Independent State of the Congo attached to the judicial system, who was stationed there from 1903 to 1905 and again in 1907. Mounted in reused school notebooks from the École Moyenne de l’État, they feature the same handwriting, the same system of pencil captions, and a continuous numbering system for the prints.