2-726-352 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Corpus (Crucified Christ), late 1800s-early 1900s. The Kingdom of Kongo was founded in the 1300s and rapidly consolidated into a centralized state. Shortly after the arrival of the Portuguese explorer Diogo Cam in 1483, and the Catholic missionaries traveling with him, the Kongo king was baptized as João I, and Christianity became the state religion. Commercial and diplomatic relationships may have been solidified between the Kongo kingdom and the Portuguese, but civil war, the Atlantic slave trade, and Christian proselytism would cause serious disruption and turmoil in Kongo society during the ensuing centuries. Testifying to the interaction between Central African religion and Catholicism, Kongo crucifixes were created as new spiritual tools to help explain and alleviate the turbulent situation.