Repraesentatio maiestatis, qua rex in Cabo Lopo Gonsalves coram peregrinis sese ostentare solet
"A Representation of Treason, by which a Foreign Woman Displays Herself Before the King of Cape Lopez of Gonzalez" (caption translation). Depicting the southern Bight of Biafra region. This image shows the king sitting on a chair/throne on a raised platform of two or three steps with a naked woman accused of treason prostrated before him. Nobles surround him and his council likely sit on a mat on the ground. In the background is a large canoe which holds sixty people, and the foreground shows women weaving mats or cooking bananas over a fire. For this image in particular, see pp. 142-43. 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
Repraesentatio maiestatis, qua rex in Cabo Lopo Gonsalves coram peregrinis sese ostentare solet
RegID
SI-OB-1019
Date
Late 1500s
Title
Repraesentatio maiestatis, qua rex in Cabo Lopo Gonsalves coram peregrinis sese ostentare solet
Source
Theodore and Johan Israel De Bry, Indiae Orientalis pars VI [India Orientalis. pt. 6], (Frankfort, 1604), plate 19. Copy in Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library.
Language
Latin
Item sets
Pre-Colonial Africa: Society, Polity, Culture
Spatial Coverage
Africa--Eastern Bight
Reproduced In
Theodore and Johan Israel De Bry, Indiae Orientalis pars VI [India Orientalis. pt. 6], (Frankfort, 1604), plate 19
Researchers
Jerome Handler; Michael Tuite; Henry B. Lovejoy Graduate Research Assistants: Tiffany Beebe; Travis May
Identifier
BRY07