1673 Engraving of an Indigenous Man with Painted Skin and a Feathered Crown
DESCRIPTION
An engraved scene of an Indigenous man in a feathered crown appears in this excerpted leaf from the America's Discoverers chapter of the 1673 German edition of Arnoldus Montanus's account of the Americas.
Beside a palm, a tall man in a crown of feathers stands with one hand on his hip and the other resting on a long bow, with an arrow slung across his body and a quiver at his waist. His skin is patterned all over, and round ornaments hang from his ears and are fastened to his chest and arms. Behind him, seated companions, one in a feathered headdress, point toward a hut, a shore with distant boats, and a hill topped by a tall post. The engraving is uncaptioned, and neither side of the leaf describes such a figure, so which people it is meant to show is unclear. The text below follows the feuds among Cortés's captains in Honduras. Cristóbal de Olid turned against Cortés at the bay the text calls Figueras and captured Francisco de las Casas and Gil González. The two prisoners stabbed him at supper, and he was beheaded. The reverse turns to Francisco de Garay's disastrous expedition to the Pánuco River, where, the text claims, the inhabitants feasted on 250 roasted Spaniards. It also covers the wealth of Cortés's court, which could afford to cast a cannon of pure gold.
Arnoldus Montanus (ca. 1625–1683), a Dutch minister and schoolmaster, compiled De Nieuwe en Onbekende Weereld from earlier chronicles and travel accounts without ever crossing the Atlantic. The Amsterdam publisher Jacob van Meurs issued it in 1671 with a wealth of engravings. John Ogilby's English adaptation followed the same year, and Die Unbekante Neue Welt, the German edition attributed to Olfert Dapper, followed in 1673. Its illustrations were drawn by artists who had mostly never seen the Americas either. They mix reported detail with European invention, and they shaped how a generation of European readers pictured the New World.
CONDITION
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