Comment le Roy de Congo donne audience aux Ambassadeurs

"How the King of Congo Gives an Audience to Ambassadors" (caption translation). Dapper described how the king received Dutch emissaries "in a chapel built of thick earth that was covered with leaves and greenery. A copper chandelier with many arms holding lit candles was suspended from the middle of this little building and illuminated all of it. The King was wearing a gold brocade robe and wore three thick gold chains around his neck; he wore a carbuncle on his right thumb and two larger emeralds on his left hand. A gold cross was attached to the left sleeve of his robe. . . At his sides were two pages. . . The throne was an arm chair of velvet and on it was embroidered 'Don Alvarez King of Congo.'" (p. 352). Olfert Dapper (1636–1689) was a Dutch physician and writer, who 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).