CONGO (DRC), INDEPENDENT STATE OF CONGO, “COMMISSION OF INQUIRY”, 1903–1907 An important photographic album comprising 61 period silver and citrate prints, documenting in particular the visit to Leopoldville by the 1904 International Commission of Inquiry. The album features a photograph captioned “Commission of Inquiry, Leo, 30 October 1904’, taken at the time of the International Commission of Inquiry’s arrival in Leopoldville to examine the regime of the Independent State of the Congo – a major episode in its history and a subject rarely documented in private photographs. The provenance is linked to the judicial circles of the Independent State: a portrait of Judge Gianpietri in full dress in Leopoldville (October 1904), the steamer *Ville de Bruxelles* with a handwritten note from the court clerk listing the passengers (November 1903), and a postcard dated December 1907 addressed to Mr F. Grenade (?), Public Prosecutor in Stanleyville, franked with a cancelled 10-centime Mols stamp, of philatelic interest. There is also a fine series of around ten portraits of Congolese women seated on a veranda, of remarkable compositional quality, reminiscent of studio photography. Various formats mounted on the pages of a reused school exercise book from the École Moyenne de l’État (label dated 1907), most captioned in French in pencil, several annotated on the reverse, some numbered. The collection documents two visits. The first, from 1903 to 1905, covers Léopoldville and Stanley Pool (cataracts and waterfalls, rapids, the avenue of acacia trees at the S.A.B. in Kinshasa, maize threshing, shipyard showing the hull of the steamer Singatini (?) three days before its launch, Stanley Pool station with the Congo Railway train), the river and its posts (Irebu, Vieux Pimu (?), Lukolela, Bombinda, Yumbi, Basoko, Isangi, Yakusu, Yambuya on the Aruwimi, Chief Badjoko’s canoes), Stanleyville (fishing at the rapids, the Tshopo Falls, the Stanleyville–Ponthierville railway, Saint-Gabriel Mission, Romée’s farm (?)) and Kasai (Lusambo in 1904: Bradfer (?) column towards Likoto, brickworks, dance, settlement and Bakuba witch-doctor, Lupaka (former chief Mutétéla), indigenous grave). The second expedition, in 1907, headed eastwards (Kivu, Cabambari (?), Calembelembé), featuring a handwritten note concerning Chief Nja Gesy (?) and the White Fathers’ mission, annotated ‘A memory of a country difficult to travel through, but very beautiful’, and the return journey aboard the steamer Flandre. The cover shows signs of wear and soiling; the pages are partially detached; a few prints are sun-faded or yellowed; nevertheless, the collection as a whole is consistent and of great documentary value. Note: The three photographic albums presented under lots [no.], [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 system for the prints.