Untitled Image (Queen Nzinga and a Drummer in the Kingdom of Matamba)
The Kingdom of Matamba is located in the Kwanza North region. The accompanying text describes how Queen Nzinga is seated among her maidservants and watches a drummer. A small structure, perhaps a shrine is in the background has a mat in front of it on which is a ceremonial seat. The Queen is smoking an African elbow pipe." Antonio Cavazzi (b. 1621) was an Italian priest who from 1654 to 1667 joined the Capuchin mission in what is today northern Angola. After a visit to Europe, he returned to the Kingdom of Kongo, where he remained from 1672 to 1677. He died in Genoa in 1678. Cavazzi made this painting and other watercolors, the originals of which are in his manuscript, held in a private collection in Modena, Italy (see also Cavazzi for other images on this website). Bassani reproduces the full set of 33 watercolors, only eight of which are hosted on this site. A microfilm copy of the manuscript is held by the Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library. Cavazzi's drawings must be among the earliest known eyewitness sketches of African life by a European. They can be contrasted to, for example, the fanciful depictions found in Dapper or by the De Bry brothers (see Dapper and De Bry on this website). Thanks to Joseph Miller for his assistance in interpreting this image.
Image Title
Untitled Image (Queen Nzinga and a Drummer in the Kingdom of Matamba)
RegID
SI-OB-902
Date
1660s
Title
Untitled Image (Queen Nzinga and a Drummer in the Kingdom of Matamba)
Source
Ezio Bassani, ed., Un Cappuccino nell'Africa nera del seicento: I disegni dei Manoscritti Araldi del Padre Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi da Montecuccolo [A Capuchin in Black Africa in the Seventeenth Century: Drawings of the Araldi Manuscript of Father Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi da Montecuccolo] (Milan: Quaderni Poro, no. 4, 1987), plate 10.
Language
Italian
Item sets
Pre-Colonial Africa: Society, Polity, Culture
Spatial Coverage
Africa--West Central North
Reproduced In
Ezio Bassani, ed., Un Cappuccino nell'Africa nera del seicento: I disegni dei Manoscritti Araldi del Padre Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi da Montecuccolo [A Capuchin in Black Africa in the Seventeenth Century: Drawings of the Araldi Manuscript of Father Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi da Montecuccolo] (Milan: Quaderni Poro, no. 4, 1987), plate 10.
Researchers
Jerome Handler; Michael Tuite; Henry B. Lovejoy Graduate Research Assistants: Tiffany Beebe; Travis May
Last Updated
3-Jul-17
Identifier
Bassani-10