Don Alvaro King of Kongo Giving Audience to Ye Dutch
This engraving depicts the king of Kongo on a throne surrounded by bodyguards and retainers with Dutch emissaries kneeling in front of him. Although the image is dated 1642, this king of Kongo in the Kwanza North region is likely Álvaro VI Nimi a Lukeni a Nzenze a Ntumba, who ruled between 1636 and 1641. Thomas Astley (d. 1759) was a British bookseller and publisher who never went to Africa. His imagined localities and illustrations of Africa were informed by a library of travel books at his disposal. Astley adapted this illustration from Olfert Dapper (1636–1689), who was a Dutch physician and writer. He wrote about world history and geography, although he never travelled outside the Netherlands. In an informed discussion of Dapper as an historical source, Adam Jones was unable to discover any source for Dapper's bird's-eye view of the capital of the kingdom of Loango. Jones explains how there is virtually no evidence that "Dapper took much interest in what sort of visual material was to accompany his text, and that it was the publisher, Van Meurs, who probably did all the engraving himself." Even those these images have been used as historical evidence in modern works, Jones concludes that "few of the plates showing human beings and artefacts are of any value. . . [and] originated solely from Van Meurs' imagination” (see "Decompiling Dapper: A Preliminary Search for Evidence," History in Africa 17 (1990): p. 187-190).
Image Title
Don Alvaro King of Kongo Giving Audience to Ye Dutch
RegID
SI-OB-832
Date
1745-1747
Title
Don Alvaro King of Kongo Giving Audience to Ye Dutch
Source
"Plate XXIII" in Thomas Astley (ed.), A New General Collection of Voyages and Travels, vol. 3 (London: Thomas Astley, 1745-1747), facing p. 257.
Language
English
Item sets
Pre-Colonial Africa: Society, Polity, Culture
Spatial Coverage
Africa--West Central North
Reproduced In
Derived from Olfert Dapper, Description de l'Afrique. . . Avec des cartes & des figures en taille-douce. . . Traduite du Flamand, 1st ed. (Amsterdam: Wolfgang & Co., 1686), p. 353.
Researchers
Jerome Handler; Michael Tuite; Henry B. Lovejoy Graduate Research Assistants: Tiffany Beebe; Travis May
Last Updated
27-Jan-11; 26-Aug-19
Identifier
Astley024