Overall, these paintings have been under-researched and their stories remain untold: more is known about the western collectors, patrons and photographers who constituted or photographed the collections than about the Congolese artists who created the works and their meanings from a Congolese perspective. This project will conduct the first ever field research on these paintings in collaboration with Congolese, with particular attention to paintings made by female artists. The research aims to (1) inscribe the art works in the long history of Congolese drawing by means of a holistic and comparative approach to diverse regional traditions, which includes other precolonial, colonial and postcolonial (im)material cultural heritage; (2) uncover their as yet untold regional im-portance and meanings, as opposed to Eurocentric interpretations; (3) investigate them as artefacts of the contact zone in order to (3.1) foreground their importance as images or performative power objects from a Congolese perspective and/or (3.2) objects that were collected, appreciated and ex-hibited by westerners and influenced western artists and designers, and that were integrated into Congolese art history and, to a lesser extent collections (most are held in western collections); (4) write their reception history; (5) restitute the collections in various ways to Congolese on a regional and national level.