Samuel Champlain portrait, A Short History of Annapolis Royal

What it is

This is an engraved portrait printed in A Short History of Annapolis Royal, the Port Royal of the French, from its settlement in 1604 to the withdrawal of the British troops in 1854, published in 1897. The British Library holds the scanned page, which was digitised and tagged by users of its Flickr photostream. The engraving shows a man with shoulder-length wavy hair, a curled mustache and a pointed beard, wearing a dark doublet, a wide white collar and a cloak. A caption below it reads Samuel Champlain.

Why it matters

Port Royal was founded in 1604 by a French group that included Champlain, so a later history of the site naturally used his image. The portrait is not a likeness made in his lifetime, and a curator notes that the subject itself is unclear. Books like this one show how people in the late 1800s chose to remember the early French colonists and the British who later took over the settlement.

Look closer

• What clues in the picture, such as clothing and hairstyle, suggest the period it shows, and what might be guesswork?
• Why would an 1897 history include a portrait of a man who lived about 250 years earlier?
• Does the caption prove who is pictured, and what other evidence would you need?