Chessembo Lagoon, Congo

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Art Collection

Little is known of explorer and amateur artist Henry Bailey. From 1884 to 1888, he travelled through the Congo Free States. Some of the paintings Bailey made during these travels were reproduced as engravings in his recollection of the trip ‘Travel and Adventures in the Congo Free State and its Big Game Shooting’. He wrote the book under the ‘nom de plume’ or pen name Bula N’Zau, meaning elephant smasher; a title given to him by the locals. A watercolour by Henry Bailey, showing farm labourers tending a field of cabbages, is in the collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. In 2003, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. purchased a collection of sketches, photographs and a map, relating to his travels through the Congo.

Places

Africa, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Subjects

travel & tourism, big game hunting, topography, landscape C19th, plant, grass, mountain, lagoon, mountainous, exploration & discovery, hut

Materials & Techniques

panel, oil, oil painting

Artist

Henry Bailey ( - 1907)

Title

Chessembo Lagoon, Congo

Date

1884

Medium

Oil on panel

Dimensions

height: 17.50 cm, width: 26.50 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Charles J Sawyer, July 1973

Inscription

BL: H Bailey. /1884 VERSO: Indistinct

GAC number

10733