From The Eastern Congo to London’s Piccadilly
The Afterlife of a Kivu Gorilla
Rowland Ward Kivu Gorilla – Tracing the journey of a 1921 Rowland Ward mount—from T. Alexander Barns’ expedition through the Ward workshop to a rare surviving studio photograph
Rowland Ward Archive – Treasures Saved
A single studio photograph can open a door onto an entire lost world.
This gorilla portrait shown below of the Rowland Ward Kivu Gorilla is from the Rowland Ward workshop – taken after 1921, at the height of the firm’s success at The Jungle, in Piccadilly, London – is one of those rare images that feels less like just an old photo and more like a surviving ember from a vanished archive. It captures not only an exotic but emotive taxidermy mammal from the last century, but a moment in the evolution of natural history display, colonial hunting culture, and the artistic ambitions of the world’s most famous taxidermist, Rowland Ward.
This original photograph is part of the extensive collection of Rowland Ward Ephemera, a unique collection of original papers and photographs salvaged by Jon Saggerson from the dying days of the Rowland Ward company
The Kivu Gorilla mounted by Rowland Ward, brought back from the Eastern Congo by T. Alexander Barns in 1921
A Studio Portrait from the High Period of Ward’s Craft
The photograph shows a gorilla mount posed with sculptural intensity: muscular, and unmistakably alive in its presence.
The handwritten caption on the photograph – “modelled in the Rowland Ward Studios” is consistent with early Ward studio annotations. These inscriptions were often added for internal records, press use, or inclusion in the company’s scrapbooks.
In the case of this photograph the hunter’s identity is known to have been T. Alexander Barns who wrote a book entitled “The Wonderland of the Eastern Congo” printed in May 1922 about his expedition of 1920-1921 to the Eastern Congo, and the annotation on the back of the photo reflects this point.
Why This Photograph Matters
The significance of the image lies in three intertwined threads:
- It captures Ward’s artistic ambition at a moment when taxidermy was both science and spectacle.
- It reflects the colonial networks that supplied specimens to European workshops, raising questions about agency, and the ethics of the era.
- It survives as an important fragment of a much larger archive, one that was nearly destroyed when the company closed in 1976.
For a collector or researcher, this photograph is not an endpoint but a beginning. It invites questions about the hunter, the expedition, the workshop practices, and a review of the mount’s eventual fate. It also offers a rare opportunity to reconstruct a narrative that has been scattered across continents and decades.
A Gorilla from Congo: The Colonial Supply Chain
In the early 20th century, most gorilla skins arriving in London came from the African Congo, which had recently transitioned from the notorious Congo Free State to the Belgian Congo. Belgian officers, colonial administrators, Gentlemen Collectors and traders were among the primary suppliers of primate specimens to European taxidermists.
A plate from “The Wonderland of the Eastern Congo” by T. Alexander Barns showing the Kivu Gorilla after it had been mounted by Rowland Ward
The buyer of this Gorilla – A. Kingsley Macomber
A.K. Macomber, the American adventurer and philanthropist, bought the mounted Gorilla from Rowland Ward Ltd. The Ward archive photograph has a note on the back of it which indicates that Macomber later donated the Gorilla to the California Academy of Sciences. Jon Saggerson has the provenance of its display at the Academy.
The transaction fits squarely within Macomber’s profile as a wealthy world traveller, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and collector of natural‑history material. Ward’s Piccadilly establishment catered to precisely the type of elite Anglo‑American clientele to which Macomber belonged, and his donation of the gorilla aligns with his broader pattern of supporting scientific and cultural institutions.
Photo: By Walter Mittelholzer – This image is from the collection of the ETH-Bibliothek Public Domain photograph
Mubali natives of the Eastern Congo in ceremonial dress
The Wonderland of the Eastern Congo by T. Alexander Barns
The narrative in The Wonderland of the Eastern Congo covers T. Alexander Barns’ expedition of 1920–1921, describes the journey he undertook immediately before the book’s publication in 1922.
In the book, published by G.P. Putnam & Sons London, Barns refers to what he calls “The Kivu Gorilla” that was shot by him during this trip and then sent to Rowland Ward in London for mounting.
In this book, Barnes states that the Kasiba Forest is the home of the Kivu Gorilla. (p. 49).
“Owing to its inaccessibility, the Kasiba Forest has seldom been visited by travellers and bordering as it does the unknown country of the Bugoie dwarfs, was likely to prove interesting both entomologically and by reason of the fact that it was said to be the home of the Kivu gorilla and also what appeared to be (from a photograph shown me by a White Father) a new species of chimpanzi”
A plate from the book showing the head and shoulders of the Kivu Gorilla
The discoveries from the narrative of the book
Page 85 of the book (first published May 1922) describes the first Gorilla that Barnes shot in 1920. The scene described by Barnes is not a pleasant one to imagine. It does feel cruel and in contemporary terms would be considered a very stupid thing to do, but Barnes does appear to have been very brave (or simply unaware of the dangers), armed with just a shotgun and an assistant with a spear.
Later, page 87-88 refers to the skinning and curing of the hide of the slain Gorilla at the camp later that night, and to its weight which he stated to be 32 stones or four hundred and fifty pounds, with a height of 63 ¾ inches or about 5ft 2 inches. Barnes records that it took twelve men to carry the Gorilla back to the tents. Barnes also describes how his camp followers, although hungry at the time, refused to eat the meat of the Gorilla and he states that this was due to superstition.
It’s fascinating to think of the journey that the Gorilla skin made returning to England after 1921. There would have been a queue for the booking of space on the sailing ships sending commodities back to England. (This is generally referenced as being a problem of this specific period in John D. Hamlyn’s Menagerie Magazine of 1919). Then, to see the Gorilla having been preserved as a mount and photographed in London by Rowland Ward’s workshop, and to know that this Gorilla from the depths of the African Congo finally ended up in San Francisco – according to the information recorded on the back of the photograph itself.
This article is part of the Victorian Taxidermists section. Explore more research here →
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