Delineatio solennitatis, qua nobiles creari solent
"A Sketch of a Feast, by which the Noblemen are Accustomed to Making" (caption translation). Likely depicts the Voltaic region. During this ceremony there is a great deal of dancing by the women, the men have fencing tournaments, and an ox, donated by the nobleman, is slaughtered. Nine features are indentified, from A to I, including: (A) the ox, (B) the newly elected nobleman carried on a chair litter, beneath his feet are two slaves, (G) warriors accompanying the nobleman. The De Brys had never visited Africa and constructed their illustrations of Africans from late sixteenth century eye-witness accounts by the Dutchman Pieter de Marees of the Gold Coast in the Voltaic region, and by the Portuguese Duarte Lopez of the kingdom of Kongo in the Kwanza North region. For an extended discussion of the De Brys' illustrations of Africa and their sources, see Ernst van den Boogaart, De Brys' Africa, in Susanna Burghartz, ed., Inszenierte Welten: Die west-und ostindischen reisen der verleger de Bry, 1590-1630 [Staging New Worlds: De Brys' Illustrated Travel Reports, 1590-1630] (Basel, 2004), pp. 95-149.
Image Title
Delineatio solennitatis, qua nobiles creari solent
RegID
SI-OB-1017
Date
Late 1500s
Title
Delineatio solennitatis, qua nobiles creari solent
Source
Theodore and Johan Israel De Bry, Indiae Orientalis pars VI [India Orientalis. pt. 6], (Frankfort, 1604), plate 16. Copy in Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library.
Language
Latin
Item sets
Pre-Colonial Africa: Society, Polity, Culture
Spatial Coverage
Africa--Voltaic
Reproduced In
Theodore and Johan Israel De Bry, Indiae Orientalis pars VI [India Orientalis. pt. 6], (Frankfort, 1604), plate 16
Researchers
Jerome Handler; Michael Tuite; Henry B. Lovejoy Graduate Research Assistants: Tiffany Beebe; Travis May
Identifier
BRY05