A petition - which is beginning to be widely quoted in the Belgian media (see for example this report on RTL Info) - has just been launched to protest against the presence on a building in the rue Léopold (ill. 1), in Liège, of two figures by Liège sculptor Michel Decoux representing Africans, tobacco growers to be precise, as a tobacco shop was originally installed on the ground floor of the building.
Each of them has had an arm amputated. And that’s all it took for some to deduce that it was a representation of slaves whose hands had been cut off on the orders of King Leopold.
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- 1. 40 rue Léopold in Liège
Photo: Promeneuse7 (CC BY-SA 3.0) - See the image in its page
This totally absurd interpretation demonstrates once again that claims of this kind are usually based on falsifications of history and of history of art.
The depiction of tobacco growers with one hand cut off is intriguing: one wonders how they could grow tobacco with just one hand. Above all, these polychrome terracotta sculptures seem to have suffered the ravages of time, and it appears that the disappearance of the hands was due to an accident rather than any intention on the part of the sculptor.
In the absence of more precise documentation on the history of these works, this is a credible hypothesis - at least as credible as that of the severed hands - but not a certain one. What is certain, however, is that the chronology is sufficient to demonstrate the futility of these accusations.
As the inventory of cultural heritage in Wallonia reminds us, this building and the sculptures that adorn it were built in 1877.
With this in mind, we contacted one of the authors of the petition, Emmanuel Demez. When we asked him about the possibility that an 1877 sculpture could bear the scars of mutilations that could only have been carried out from 1884 onwards, he did not even try to contradict us. Not only did he acknowledge that these sculptures once had their hands, but that they can even be seen in old photographs (which the above-mentioned report on RTL has since shown - ill. 2).
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- 2. Old photo of one of the two sculptures, kept at the
Musée de la Vie Wallonne and shown in the RTL Info report. - See the image in its page
So why remove them? Because, according to his hypothesis (he has no proof, as he has also admitted), the statues’ hands were cut off at the time of Congo’s independence by activists who opposed the independence achieved in 1960. What’s more, the street is called "rue Léopold", which he finds "interpellent" (sic). Addendum (15/1/25): as Pierre-Yves Kairis points out in a commentary on the article French version, this street, created in 1863, was named after Leopold I, and therefore has no connection with Leopold II].
But it goes even further. Even if - and this hypothesis seems highly implausible and is not supported by anything - "activists" had cut off the hands of the sculptures, why continue the work and, rather than restoring them, remove them permanently from the façade to replace them, as he asks, with "an artistic creation that celebrates the cultural diversity of our city and the bonds of friendship that represent Belgian-Congolese brotherhood". In his view, whether or not the hands were cut off, these works would be "offensive" and "perpetuate racist stereotypes". What’s more, Emmanuel Demez asked an artificial intelligence what it thought of these sculptures! It reportedly told him that even with both hands, they were "racist and denigrating stereotypes, negroid caricatures, the lips are extremely prominent, the eyes are bulging, the hair is curly".
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- 3. Michel Decoux (1837-1924)
Figure of Black, 1877
Polychrome terracotta
Liège, façade of 40 rue Léopold
Photo: Quentin Lowagie/
Klow (CC BY-SA 4.0) - See the image in its page
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- 4. Michel Decoux (1837-1924)
Figure of Black, 1877
Polychrome terracotta
Liège, façade of 40 rue Léopold
Photo: Quentin Lowagie/
Klow (CC BY-SA 4.0) - See the image in its page
You only have to look at the photographs (ill. 3 and 4) to see that, in reality, these very fine figures are portrayed as Africans, without any intention to caricature them, quite the contrary in fact. Was it necessary to show them with Western features? What would have been said about cultural appropriation!
Ultimately, what bothers these people is that black people are portrayed with black features. What could be more racist than that? Obviously thick lips and curly hair, which are undoubtedly physical characteristics of many Africans, would be degrading. It’s hard to imagine a more racist and offensive idea.
So rather than signing this petition, we suggest that everyone sign the one launched on the same platform, which opposes the absurd removal of sculptures from a façade by a protected historic monument.