Jacques Cartier setting up a cross at Gaspe
Date1883
Artist
Howard Pyle
(American illustrator, 1853–1911)
Illustration Citation"The French Voyageurs," by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, March 1883
MediumGouache on illustration board
Dimensions17 1/2 x 11 3/4 in. (44.5 x 29.8 cm)
frame: 28 7/8 × 21 7/8 in. (73.3 × 55.6 cm)
frame: 28 7/8 × 21 7/8 in. (73.3 × 55.6 cm)
Credit LineGift of Willard S. Morse, 1923
Object number1923-31
On View
Not on viewClassificationsPAINTING
Label TextHoward Pyle depicts the gesture by which the 16th century French mariner Jacques Cartier (1491-1557), who sought a passage through North America to Eastern Asia, established the basis for French claims to Canada. The praying cleric and Cartier's bowed head reflect the author’s note that Cartier told the indigenous people "with pious fraud that the cross was only intended for a beacon."
