Histoire Naturelle des Indes
57 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
Canav Pour Pecher Les Perles (Canoe for Pearl-Fishing)
Pearls are being fished in the ocean between the main-land and Isla de Margarita, approximately ten leagues, in three or four fathoms of water by the negroes who dive into the sea, holding a hoop-net to descend to the bottom where they scrape the soil where the oysters are, in order to find the pearls. And the deeper they descend in the water, the larger are the pearls they find. Not being able to hold their breath longer than a quarter of an hour, they come up again and pull their hoop-net. The fishing from morning to evening having been completed, they return to La Rancheria where they live. Pearls are being fished in three places, namely, on Isla de Margarita, in Riohacha, and at the Cabo de la Vela.
Histoire Naturelle des Indes
Illustrated manuscript, ca. 1586
Bequest of Clara S. Peck, 1983; MA 3900 (fol. 56v–57)
