CONGO (DRC), FROM THE INDEPENDENT STATE TO BELGIAN CONGO (1908–1910) Important amateur photographic album, Boma, Matadi and Banane, 95 period silver and citrate prints. Album compiled in a notebook from the École Moyenne de l’État in the Congo (printed label on the cover, dated 1908–1910), cloth-bound spine, containing 95 period prints of various sizes mounted on the pages, numerous handwritten captions in ink and annotations on the negatives, most dated between September 1908 and January 1910. A remarkable record of colonial life in Boma, then the capital, at the very moment of the annexation of the Independent State of the Congo by Belgium (November 1908), which gave rise to the Belgian Congo. The album documents the sea voyage (on-board brass band conducted by Mr Dubois, named passengers: Malherbe, Lambin, Zorn, Andrion, de Meulemeester), the arrival in Matadi, the Matadi–Léopoldville railway, and then daily life in Boma: administrative buildings, dated bushfires, the Kalamu bridge, an excursion to Banane, interiors of the plantation house, domestic scenes and hunting scenes. The collection is notable for its reference to a ‘Photo Club Excursion to Matadi’, the photographer’s technical annotations (exposure time, aperture) and, above all, by the identification by name of several Congolese people photographed (Mr Goma Niama, Camille Teché, Mr and Mrs Jobé), a rarity in colonial photography of this period. Portraits of soldiers from the Force Publique and police officers. Yellowing and partial discolouration on some prints; a few faded prints; the collection is in good overall condition. Note: The three photo albums presented under lots [no.], [no.], and [no.] come from the same family collection and were compiled by the same person, a civil servant of the Independent State of the Congo working in the judicial system, who was posted there from 1903 to 1905 and again in 1907. Mounted in reused school exercise books from the École Moyenne de l’État, they feature the same handwriting, the same system of pencil captions and a continuous numbering of the prints.