Histoire Naturelle des Indes
53 of 122
Accession number: MA 3900
Credit: The Morgan Library & Museum. Bequest of Clara S. Peck, 1983.
Title: Histoire Naturelle des Indes [supplied on an 18th century title page]
Contents: 199 images of West Indian plants, animals and human life, with accompanying manuscript captions written in late sixteenth-century French.
Medium: Most of the illustrations consist of a black chalk underdrawing and a combination of pen and brown ink with watercolor; on some images selected areas have also been glazed with a gum.
Dimensions: Binding: 30 x 21 cm; individual leaves: 29.3 x 19.7 cm.
Binding: Bound or rebound in brown leather in the late 18th century.
Pagination: Penciled folio numbers (1–125) in lower right corner of each page were added by The Morgan Library & Museum. Folios 92v–93, 93v–94, and 95v–96 are fold-out leaves.
Histoire Naturelle des Indes
Vivree (Weeverfish)
This animal lives in the woods and in fresh water rivers and is very poisonous. The Indians use it to poison their arrows when they go to war.
Tortve (Turtle)
This fish is four feet long and two and a half feet wide. According to the reports of sailors it can live up to a hundred and fifty years. It is found on Cayman Island and lives in the sea as well as on land. It lays a large number of eggs and is good to eat.
Caiamant (Crocodile)
Marine, this fish is terrestrial and aquatic. It is found between the mainland and Cayman Island where there is no human settlement only a great number of these fishes with large turtles.
Histoire Naturelle des Indes
Illustrated manuscript, ca. 1586
Bequest of Clara S. Peck, 1983; MA 3900 (fol. 52v–53)
