Joseph-Aurélien Cornet

Joseph-Aurélien Cornet (born 20 May 1919 in Bièvre, died 20 January 2004 in Ciney, Belgium )  was a Belgian-born Christian Brother, ethnologist and art historian who documented the art and culture of the Congolese region and people of the Congo in photographs, illustrated field notebooks, and language primers for nearly 30 years.

Education and career
Cornet was educated by the Christian Brothers of Louvain. He entered the novitiate in 1935, earned a teaching degree in 1938, followed by bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in art history from the Catholic University of Louvain in 1945 and 1970, respectively.

In 1970, Cornet also became the first local director of the Institut des Musées Nationaux du Congo (IMNC) and then, in 1971, director of the Institut des Musées Nationaux du Zaïre (IMNZ). The IMNC was founded without either a building or any objects, so Cornet's primary task was to develop the museum's collections. He did so primarily among the Woyo, the Kuba, and the Nkundu peoples. He documented his findings in field notebooks and binders of photo negatives with the aim of eventually developing a ten volume History of Congolese Art.

Cornet retired from the directorship of the IMNC in 1987 and returned to Belgium in 1992 where he continued researching, publishing and lecturing, especially on tracking looted objects from the museum following the 1997 collapse of the Mobutu regime.

Following his death in 2004, Cornet's archive of photographic negative binders, field notebooks, language and personal notes, printed materials, and other research objects were donated to the Loyola University New Orleans Special Collections & Archives.