Histoire Naturelle des Indes
62 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
Montons Du Perov (Sheep of Peru)
These sheep are used by the Spaniards instead of horses to carry their gold and silver from the mines to the towns near the sea. There they are put on ships and taken to Spain when the fleet of the Indies sets out. They (the sheep) are big and strong. They jostle the people and make them fall down. They are very good at climbing the mountains of the country which the horses could not do, and when these sheep have arrived at the towns of their destination they are sold to the master of the ship or another merchant as provision.
Histoire Naturelle des Indes
Illustrated manuscript, ca. 1586
Bequest of Clara S. Peck, 1983; MA 3900 (fol. 61v–62)
