AbstractThis article addresses a number of issues raised by one of the so‐called Zulu prints in The Kafirs Illustrated (1849), a folio volume produced by the British artist George French Angas, following his visit to South Africa in 1847. In particular, it demonstrates that Angas relied on the assistance of missionaries from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions throughout his stay in south‐east Africa and that, with very few exceptions, his images were based on his encounters with Zulu‐speakers living on the then newly‐established native locations in Natal. The significance of this fact is explored partly through a consideration of possible differences in the dress of Zulu‐speakers living in the Zulu kingdom and in colonial Natal, and partly through an evaluation of the personal history of Timuni, a member of the Zulu royal family, whose sons, Ndhlovu and Mruyi, were interviewed by James Stuart at the turn of the twentieth century.