Reception d'un ambassadeur chez le roi de Kquoia, en Guinée

"The reception of an ambassador with the King of Kquioa, in Guinea" (caption translation). This engraving depicts the royal court in the Vai-speaking kingdom of "Kquioa" (or Quoja, Kquoja, Kquoia and other variant spellings) in the Upper Guinea Coast region. Pieter van der Aa (1659-1733) was a Dutch publisher known for preparing maps and atlases, though he also printed pirated editions of foreign bestsellers and illustrated volumes. He never traveled to Africa. He adapted this image from Olfert Dapper (1636–1689), who was a Dutch physician and writer. Dapper 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 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

Reception d'un ambassadeur chez le roi de Kquoia, en Guinée

RegID

SI-OB-876

Date

1729

Title

Reception d'un ambassadeur chez le roi de Kquoia, en Guinée

Source

Pieter van der Aa, La Galerie Agrèable du Monde (Leide: Van Der Aa, 1729).

Language

Dutch

Item sets

Pre-Colonial Africa: Society, Polity, Culture

Spatial Coverage

Africa--Rivers

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. 266.

Researchers

Jerome Handler; Michael Tuite; Henry B. Lovejoy Graduate Research Assistants: Tiffany Beebe; Travis May

Last Updated

2007; 28-Aug-19

Identifier

B014