This is quite a handsome print showing a European officer meeting with a giant Patagonian chief. Accounts of the giant race of people who lived in what is now Argentina and Chile first appeared in a handwritten account of Magellan’s around the world voyage of 1522 by Antonio Pigafetta: “One day we suddenly saw a naked man of giant stature on the shore of the port, dancing, singing, and throwing dust on his head. The captain-general [i.e., Magellan] sent one of our men to the giant so that he might perform the same actions as a sign of peace.” Over the years their existence was ‘confirmed’ by Sir Francis Drake, Anthony Knivet, and William Adams.
