(AFRICA) Cabinet card of missionary William Henry Sheppard a

Sale 2598 - Lot 73

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(AFRICA.) Cabinet card of missionary William Henry Sheppard and his African art collection. Albumen photograph, 5 1/2 x 3 3/4 inches, captioned in the negative, on original plain mount; minor wear. Tuscaloosa, AL: Turner, 1892

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William Henry Sheppard (1865-1927) is generally regarded as the first African-American collector of African art. Raised in Waynesboro, VA, he attended the Hampton Institute and became fascinated by its "Curiosity Room" of African artifacts. He went to Africa as a Presbyterian missionary in 1890, and became the first westerner to gain access to the Kuba or Bakuba kingdom in what is now the Republic of Congo. He later helped draw attention to atrocities in the colony committed by the Belgian king Leopold II. Over a 20-year period, he gathered a collection of Kuba art which donated to the Hampton Institute.

This cabinet card features a portrait of Sheppard, surrounded by pictures of his collection and Kuba people he had meet. The main caption reads "W.H. Sheppard, FRGS, the first foreigner to enter the Bakuba land, Central Africa, June 1892." We have traced only one other example of this card, at Emory University.