Pirate pictures

            This first picture is reported to be an actual drawing of Olivier Levasseur. If you look closely, you can see some writing at the bottom. I have never been able to read it myself, nor have I ever seen a translation of what it says. Maybe someone out there who knows what it says can help out so I can include it here? That would be wonderful!

 

This picture has always been intriguing to me. What first drew me to it was when I noticed that his left eye is looking straight ahead, rather than at the artist as the right eye is. I noticed this because I have amblyopia in my left eye. When I was a child, my parents had a series of photos done of me. In one of them, the photographer captured my eye defect, which was that my left eye could move in, but not out. So my right eye (the furthest from the camera in this shot, is looking at the camera, but the left one is looking straight ahead.

 

            Unfortunately, it is impossible to know if Levasseur had amblyopia. Judging from the scars on his face around the eye socket, though, I believe that this defect is the result of an injury of some sort when he was grown. It is a mystery that modern pirate scholars may never be able to solve.

 

            The next picture appears to be the result of a reversal of the picture, as the eye defect has moved to the other eye!

           

            This next photo is of his memorial on Reunion Island. I don’t say grave because if you read the final proclamation detailing that he was found guilty of piracy, it says that after he was hanged his body would be thrown into the sea.

 

            The next couple of photos appear to be artist’s renditions of the original drawing of Levasseur. It is quite good, and really captures the arrogance of the man. In both drawings, his mouth is trying to smile, but the gesture doesn’t come anywhere near his eyes, which are hard and uncompromising. I don't know who did this drawing; I got it off the Internet. If someone knows who drew I would appreciate finding out so I can give them credit for it!

 

 

 

            The last drawing is an artist’s rendering from the game Assassin’s Creed IV. It is really quite good and probably comes pretty close to what Levasseur might have looked like at some time during his piratical career.