Unus Americanus ex Virginia

The innovative, Prague-born engraver Wenceslaus Hollar served an international clientele in seventeenth-century England, Germany, and the Netherlands, covering a range of topics such as architecture, landscape views, maps, and the natural world. The subject here is identified as Jacques, an Algonquin-speaking warrior of the Munsee Delaware people, who was taken prisoner and placed on display in Amsterdam and then in Antwerp in 1644, where Hollar encountered him and recorded his likeness. The sitter’s face is adorned with tattoos around his eyes, and he wears earrings and a necklace made of beads and shells, along with a band of teeth across his forehead.