Vasco da Gama's Arrival at the Samorin of Calicut

What it is

This is a black-and-white engraving, created around 1672 by Johannes Janssonius van Waesberge I. It shows a ceremonial procession: a bearded man in armour and a helmet stands in the foreground with a spear, and a figure lies face down on the ground near a stick. Soldiers, a drummer, a man in a tall hat and a mounted rider under a canopy appear behind them, with hills and palm trees. Text is printed along the top and bottom edges.

Why it matters

Gama led the Portuguese voyage that reached Calicut in 1498, after sailing around Africa to India. The print was made more than a century and a half after those events, so it shows how Europeans of the later seventeenth century pictured the encounter rather than how it looked at the time. It also reflects the Samorin, the ruler of Calicut, whose court is pictured in the scene.

Look closer

• Who is lying on the ground, and what does the stick near them suggest about the scene?
• Which people in the print are shown as powerful, and how does the artist signal this?
• What might this later print leave out about the real meeting at Calicut?