Histoire Naturelle des Indes
60 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
Tigre Fermilliere (Tiger and Anteater)
Savage beast. However, whenever this small animal called anteater encounters a tiger looking for prey it turns on its back and throws itself on the tiger's neck and pierces its throat with its snout and claws and does not release him until he is dead on that spot.
Cabrite Savvage (Feral Goat)
Living in the woods, it is very excellent eating.
Histoire Naturelle des Indes
Illustrated manuscript, ca. 1586
Bequest of Clara S. Peck, 1983; MA 3900 (fol. 59v–60)