Histoire Naturelle des Indes
107 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
Come Les Yndiennes Vont Lauer Leurs Enfans A La Mer Quand Jl Est La Plaine Lune (How the Indian Women Wash Their Children in the Sea When the Moon is Full)
The Indian women take their children to the sea and wash them. The mother holds one by the hand and the other climbs on her back. They scrub them well so that they have no skin sores or itch and they are clean all over their bodies. The Indian women swim like fish in the sea.
Histoire Naturelle des Indes
Illustrated manuscript, ca. 1586
Bequest of Clara S. Peck, 1983; MA 3900 (fol. 109v–110)