CONGO (DRC), BELGIAN CONGO, COLONIAL ERA, RUBBER HARVEST, 19 - Lot 62

CONGO (DRC), BELGIAN CONGO, COLONIAL ERA, RUBBER HARVEST, 1913–1929 Set of three photographs and two postcards; album sheet featuring three sepia-toned silver prints, circa 1929, documenting the rubber harvest in the Belgian Congo: a worker tapping a rubber tree by making an incision in the trunk, with a collection bucket at the base of the tree, under the watchful eye of a foreman; a European official inspecting and weighing the harvest while seated at a table in front of workers presenting their containers; workers gathered in front of a brick building for the harvest’s return. Handwritten annotations from the period in French and Dutch (“Rubber Oogst 1929,” “Récolte du caoutchouc,” “Contrôle caoutchouc”). A rare direct photographic record of rubber tapping on Congolese plantations during the interwar period. Included are two 10-centime orange postals (Mols type, 1912), picture postcards titled "Léopoldville, the Ponds" (No. 46) and "Elisabethville, the First Means of Transportation" (No. 22), both of which have been mailed. The first, postmarked Ponthierville, February 1914, with transit through Léopoldville and arrival in Braine-l’Alleud, bears a long handwritten text by a Belgian contractor leading a brigade of 70 workers—a vivid account of the life of a colonial official on the eve of the Great War. The second, postmarked Stanleyville 1913, was addressed to a sergeant major of the Carabiniers in Brussels. In generally good condition, with foxing and signs of handling on the photographs; postmarks are legible.