Histoire Naturelle des Indes
117 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 De Coi Les Hindes Vont Ala Paicherie Et Comme Jlz Peschent Le Poisson (The Canoe With Which the Indians Go Fishing and How They Catch Fish)
They go to the sea with their canoe and fishing-line, attaching the line to one side of the canoe. This done, they take their fishing lines and place one over their ears and the other in their mouth. Then, feeling that the fish is caught, they quickly pull in their fishing line and the fish with their hands.
Histoire Naturelle des Indes
Illustrated manuscript, ca. 1586
Bequest of Clara S. Peck, 1983; MA 3900 (fol. 119v–120)