La Salle Discovering Louisiana [reproduction], by Theodore Gudin.
M3838.2
Gift of the French Government.

Rene Cavelier de La Salle (b.1643 - d.1687) was a French explorer who "discovered" and founded what was to become Louisiana, a French territory in the New World, in 1682.

Theodore Gudin (French, b.1802, d.1879) painted this image in 1844 of La Salle landing in Matagorda Bay (in what is now Texas).