Leopold’s Congo folly unmasked

The ‘Crocodile Room’ of the Africa Museum features preserved wildlife, at Belgium’s African Museum in Tervuren, Belgium in this 2018 filepic. Founded in 1898 by King Leopold II as the Congo Museum, the institution was established as a kind of showroom for goods and natural resources taken from the Congo Free State. — Max Pinckers/The New York Times

IN the summer of 1911, Belgium’s Ministry of Colonies sent two post-impressionist artists to Matadi, a port city on the Atlantic coast of the Belgian Congo.

Alfred Bastien and Paul Mathieu were tasked with capturing images of the colony’s landscape and people for a painting to be displayed at the 1913 Ghent World Fair.