Portrait of Samuel de Champlain

Jacques Reich's engraved portrait depicts Samuel de Champlain, the French explorer and colonial administrator who founded Quebec City in 1608. The technique of line engraving—with its characteristic cross-hatching and fine parallel strokes—was standard for newspaper illustration and book reproduction in the late nineteenth century. Reich's rendering captures Champlain in period dress: the wavy shoulder-length hair, pointed beard, and broad white collar characteristic of early seventeenth-century French nobility. Such portraits served to document historical figures for contemporary audiences, establishing visual conventions that would become foundational to illustrated journalism and, subsequently, the sequential art of early comic strips.