Evangeline, heroine of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1847 epic poem, is shown in a pensive moment during her long quest to find her lost fiancé Gabriel in the pencil drawing. In the poem the lovers are separated as they are expelled by the British from French Acadia in eastern Canada only to find each other many years later as Gabriel is dying. The drawing on beige paper is signed in purplish ink “C. Schuessele” with what might be a stamp. The oil painting of this subject, titled <i>Evangeline</i> is in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
