To celebrate the bicentenary of Livingstone’s birth, the King Baudouin Foundation’s Heritage Fund and the Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale have joined forces to re-create the extraordinary meeting of Livingstone and Stanley. From 6/6/13 to 11/11/2013 at the BELvue Museum, Brussels.

The name of David Livingstone, Scottish missionary doctor and explorer, is inextricably linked to the geographical discoveries of the second half of the 19th century in Africa. His missionary work led him initially to the edge of the Kalahari Desert. Livingstone’s following expeditions, from the discovery of the Zambezi River to the Lakes of East Africa, were to make him Britain’s national hero.

In 1871, in poor health, Livingstone was joined on the shores of Lake Tanganyika by Henry Morton Stanley, a journalist from the New York Herald. After several weeks’ exploration together, the two men separated: Livingstone to go on his last quest to discover the source of the Nile, from which he would not return, and Stanley to the glory he would receive for his first African expedition. Their shared trip around Lake Tanganyika provided great advances in knowledge about the hydrographical network of the Great Lakes and the shores of Lake Tanganyika, which had hitherto not been mapped.

From 6 June to 11 November 2013 the King Baudouin Foundation and the Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale have collaborated to re-trace this exceptional meeting in a fascinating exhibition at the BELvue Museum, using previously unseen documents and objects, loaned by public institutions as well as private collectors.
The visitor sets out with Stanley on his search for Livingstone. After meeting Livingstone, he then accompanies him to his discovery of Lake Tanganyika. The exhibition follows the route set out in Stanley’s logbook, part of the archives acquired by the King Baudouin Foundation in 2001. It is this document that immortalizes the famous meeting with Livingstone and Stanley’s legendary question “Dr Livingstone, I presume?”

However, the exhibition highlights above all the great influence of the veteran explorer David Livingstone on Stanley, whom he initiated into the indispensable techniques of scientific exploration in Africa. It was this meeting that really influenced Stanley’s career and was at the base of the fame he went on to achieve.

View the online application of this exhibition

Practical information:
Musée BELvue, Place des Palais 7, 1000 Brussels
From 6 June to 11 November 2013
From Tuesday to Friday, 10h to 17h and at the weekend from 10h to 18h.
Closed on Mondays and on 21 July
Entrance free