False portrait of Samuel de Champlain
If Théophile Hamel’s 1870 portrait of Samuel de Champlain bears any actual resemblance to Champlain himself, the likeness is certainly accidental. Hamel’s painting is based on an 1854 lithograph attributed to Louis César-Joseph Ducornet that was at one time considered an authentic portrait of Champlain. However, art historians now agree that the lithograph was inspired by a portrait of Michel Particelli d’Emery, an advisor to Cardinal Richelieu in the court of Louis XIII, engraved two hundred years earlier by Balthasar Moncornet. In fact, no reliable likeness of Champlain is known to exist, despite the important role he played in Canadian history.
Champlain was born in France, likely in 1570. He served in the French militia before embarking on his first voyage to North America in 1603. Over the next thirty years, he travelled thousands of kilometres along Canada’s inland waterways, drawing detailed maps and publishing books filled with his observations about the land and its inhabitants. He formed diplomatic alliances with First Nations peoples near modern-day Quebec City and established a permanent base there to facilitate the fur trade. This laid the foundations of New France, and Champlain would serve as the colony’s lieutenant governor until his death in 1635.