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Secondary sourcePainting1850

Vasco da Gama Steel Engraving

1850

A hand-coloured steel engraving from the 1850s, showing a European man kneeling before a seated ruler. It is a later reproduction of a likeness of Gama.

Shows a later nineteenth-century reproduction of a likeness of Gama, which is of limited reliability as a record of his appearance.

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Hand-coloured engraving of a European man with a beard and dark cloak kneeling on a palace terrace before a turbaned, elderly seated ruler reclining on a cushioned couch. Attendants stand nearby, and a kneeling servant pours from a vessel. An arched doorway opens onto a hazy landscape with a distant hill and figures.
Vasco da Gama, steel engraving from the 1850s with modern hand colouring. Wikimedia Commons, scanned from an eBay listing, February 2007.

About this source

What it is

This is an engraving from about the 1850s with modern hand colouring, added later. It shows a European man with a beard and dark cloak kneeling on a palace terrace before a turbaned, elderly seated ruler on a cushioned couch. Attendants stand nearby, and a kneeling servant pours from a vessel. The image was taken from an eBay listing scanned in February 2007. The author is unknown.

Why it matters

The engraving is a later reproduction and, according to the curator's note, a poor-quality likeness of Gama. Such prints circulated in the nineteenth century and helped shape popular ideas about Portuguese explorers meeting rulers in distant lands. The modern colouring was added long after the print was made.

Look closer

  • What does the scene show about the relationship between the kneeling man and the ruler?
  • Why might the added colour change the way you read this picture?
  • How could you check whether this image shows a real meeting or a later invention?

This painting is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Vasco da Gama on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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Vasco da Gama, Livro de Lisuarte de Abreu

Livro de Lisuarte de Abreu (compiler unknown) · c. 1565

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Signature of Vasco da Gama

Vasco da Gama

A tall tapering white stone pillar topped with a stone cross stands on a raised circular platform by the sea. Two people sit on a low wall at left, and others sit near the right side under a partly cloudy blue sky.Artifact

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Vasco da Gama Pillar

1498 or 1499

Hand-painted portolan-style world map on parchment showing the Atlantic, Africa, and parts of Asia and the Americas, with compass roses, rhumb lines, colored flags, and Latin and Portuguese place labels.Document

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Cantino Planisphere

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