Lot n° 312
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3000 - 4000
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ZAGOURSKI (Casimir). L'Afrique qui disparait! Album of 289 p - Lot 312
ZAGOURSKI (Casimir). L'Afrique qui disparait! Album of 289 postcard-format silver prints, stamped on the back "C. Zagourski - Photographe Léopoldville Congo Belge". Original full tan calf album in imitation elephant skin, illustrated in relief with a pachyderm profile. A volume of 36 sheets of blue canson paper with notches and serpents (unglued photos). "L'Afrique qui disparaît!" consists of 2 series of photographs taken around 1930-1935, mainly in the Congo and Rwanda. Subjects: various portraits (kings, notables, marabouts, dancers, fishermen, warriors, smokers, embroiderers, midwives, tattoo artists...), objects (weapons, masks), landscapes (waterfalls, cliffs, villages, rivers, markets, bush locomotion...), various scenes (flour preparation, harvests, women's grooming, circumcision grooming), diseases (skull deformation, sleeping sickness, elephantiasis, goiter), animals (elephants, gorillas, antelopes, hippopotamus...). Album rubbed (some edges damaged, slight creases in the corners of some photos). A 9 x 27.5 cm panorama postcard from the first series (Nyamuagira volcano, Kivu) is enclosed, as are a dozen postcards of the Congo (wild animals) published in France and Belgium. Casimir Zagourski (1883-1944) was born into a Polish noble family. After completing his studies, he joined the Imperial Russian Army until 1917, when he was inserted as an officer in the Polish Army. In 1924, he emigrated to Central Africa, settling in the Belgian Congo as a photographer. He set up a studio in Leopoldville, where he became Agfa's official dealer for photographic equipment. From 1929 onwards, he embarked on several expeditions across the Congo and neighboring countries, returning with several hundred shots from which he selected those he would use to create his masterpiece "L'Afrique qui disparaît!". These genuine silver prints are then shipped to Germany to have a postcard-style back printed. Zagourski then sells them from his studio in Leopoldville, either by the piece or in a leather album specially made by a craftsman. Aware that he is living in the last moments of an Africa untouched by modernity, he documents the people and their customs. Scenes of daily life, architectural elements, costumes and panoramas are photographed using a serial method, with repetition and accumulation becoming, under Zagourski's lens, an artistic gesture. Beauty is everywhere: in hairstyles, in nature, in bodies and in looks. The photographs are divided into two carefully inventoried series. Belgian private collection. A rare and fine set in its original album.
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