Live auction - Lot 623
[Congo - Railway]
The construction of a railway, habitation and types in Belgian Congo.
1890-1900
€ 8.000 / 10.000
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Lot description
99 original photographs (albumen prints), c. 17 x 12 cm, pasted on thick cardboard.
Loose in re-used folder with ms. mentions on front cover.
Intriguing set of photographs: fetish worship, smoking women, tattooed (through scarification) people, a group of people traveling together and taking some rest, construction of a railway, a village in the neighbourhood of Boma, construction of the railway between Matadi and Kinshasa (1890-1895) in the region of the Crystal Mountains, the Force Publique and installation of a post office, the protected cruiser "HNLMS Koningin Wilhelmina der Nederlanden" in Boma, livestock on Mateba Island, an African chef and his family, a group of tattooed women with in the middle a woman with child, construction of a bridge for the railway line Matadi-Leopoldville, possibly in the mountains of Palaballa, construction of a railway bridge in Mpozo, portraits of colonials, railway bridge in "ravin du Sommeil", Belgian bussinessman Albert Thys (1849-1915) who directed the construction of the Matadi railway and his coworkers, an African postman, a black-smith working on the construction of the railway, the rocks of Moanda, a very big baobab, several group portraits of colonials, Africans and mixed, the M'Pozo river and railway bridge, a killed hippopotamus, a group of children surrounded by nuns ("jumelles - recueillies par les bonnes soeurs et non supprimées ?? "), brick houses in Boma, etc.
Ref. Biogr. coloniale belge, IV, 1955, col. 875-8881.
Prov. Liège, Lhomme, sale Bibliothèque universitaire Moretus Plantin, 23.11.1991, lot 58. - Museum Artium. Prov. Belg S.I. (label).