African presence in European museums

In the last third of the ^19th century, when the European powers embarked on their colonial conquest of the African continent, a vast movement was underway to create ethnological museums in Europe. A system of cultural extraction was then put in place south of the Sahara, which in many ways was based on the system for exploiting Africa's natural resources. A large network of international players - adventurers, missionaries, merchants, military personnel, diplomats, colonial agents, scientific staff and so on - became involved in "collecting". - A large network of international players - adventurers, missionaries, merchants, soldiers, diplomats, colonial agents, scientific personnel, etc. - engaged in the sometimes massive, sometimes violent "collection" of objects of various types, from items used in daily life to monumental architectural elements, musical instruments, royal insignia and human remains. The lecture explores the history of the arrival of African collections in European museums in the ^19th and ^20th centuries.