A Young Daughter of the Picts - YCBA Collections Search

Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, ca. 1533–before 1588, French, active in England from ca.1580., A Young Daughter of the Picts, ca. 1585

Print Record | Large Print Record

Creator:: Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, ca. 1533–before 1588
Formerly attributed to John White, active 1585–1593
Title:: A Young Daughter of the Picts
Date:: ca. 1585
Materials & Techniques:: Watercolor and gouache, touched with gold on parchment
Dimensions:: Sheet: 10 1/4 × 7 3/8 inches (26 × 18.7 cm), Frame: 20 3/8 × 15 3/8 × 1 inches (51.8 × 39.1 × 2.5 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:: Inscribed on verso in graphite, lower right: "Georg Hüfnagel | 9822 | UBZZ"
Credit Line:: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:: Public Domain
Accession Number:: B1981.25.2646
Classification:: Drawings & Watercolors
Collection:: Prints and Drawings
Subject Terms:: botany | ethnology | figure study | flowers (plants) | hair | lance | miniature painting | religious and mythological subject | root | science | settlement | spear | sword | tattoos | women
Access:: Accessible by appointment in the Study Room [Request]
Note: The Study Room is open by appointment. Please visit the Study Room page on our website for more details.
Link:: https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:12454
Export:: XML
IIIF Manifest:: JSON

This colorful miniature apparently served as the model for an engraving for plate III of the section on Picts and ancient Britons in Theodor de Bry’s publication of Thomas Hariot's “Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia”, published in 1590. Originally attributed to the artist John White, whose drawings from the Virginia expedition were also featured in the de Bry volume, “Young Daughter” was not reattributed to Le Moyne until after its acquisition by Paul Mellon in 1967. The Pictish illustrations were intended to remind readers that early natives of the British Isles existed in a savage state similar to natives in the Americas. “Young Daughter” was the second miniature attributed to Le Moyne from his drawings of early indigenous peoples, most of which are now known only through engravings. The first miniature identified as his work, and the only one from Le Moyne's drawings of Timucuan Indians, is “Laudonnière and King Athore”, which was featured in part 2 of de Bry's “America” and is in the James Hazen Hyde collection of the New York Public Library. The drawing is a harmonious embodiment of Le Moyne’s two known subject areas, ethnological drawings and botanicals. The colorfully ornamented body of the young woman, with her high waist, full thighs, and long hair rippling in waves to her hips, evokes his drawings of the Timucuan women, who also tattooed their bodies through a process Le Moyne describes in his Florida observations. Her botanical tattoos, such as the cornflowers on her waist and wrists, and the heartsease on her waist, calves, and hips, also bear comparison with Le Moyne’s existing botanical illustrations. In addition, Le Moyne decorates her with species newly introduced to Western Europe, thus signaling his botanical sensibilities and knowledge, though rendering her slightly anachronistic.

Lisa Ford

John Baskett, Paul Mellon's Legacy: a Passion for British Art: Masterpieces from the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2007, p. 240, no. 1, N5220 M552 P38 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA)

Rachel Lambert Mellon’s collection of botanical artworks (The New York Botanical Garden, 2016-10-08 - 2017-02-15) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Making History - Antiquaries in Britain 1707-2007 (Yale Center for British Art, 2012-02-02 - 2012-05-27) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

An American's Passion for British Art - Paul Mellon's Legacy (Royal Academy of Arts, 2007-10-20 - 2008-01-27) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Paul Mellon's Legacy : A Passion for British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2007-04-18 - 2007-07-29) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

An American's Passion for British Art - Paul Mellon's Legacy (Yale Center for British Art, 2007-04-18 - 2007-07-29) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

A New World - England's First View of America (Yale Center for British Art, 2007-03-06 - 2007-06-01) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

Wilde Americk - Discovery and Exploration of the New World, 1500-1850 (Yale Center for British Art, 2001-09-27 - 2001-09-27) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

John Baskett, Paul Mellon's Legacy: a Passion for British Art: Masterpieces from the Yale Center for British Art, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2007, p. 240, no. 1, N5220 M552 P38 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Peter W. M. Blayney, Material London, , Philadelphia, U.S., pp. 322-43, DA680 M38X 2000 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Martina Droth, Britain in the world : Highlights from the Yale Center for British Art in honor of Amy Meyers, Yale University Press, New Haven, London, 2019, p. 17, N6761 .Y33 2019 (LC) (YCBA) [YCBA]

Mark Evans, Renaissance Watercolours, V&A Publishing, London, p. 224, fig. 178, ND1925 .E93 2020 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Elisabeth Fairman, Wilde Americk : Discovery and Exploration of the New World, , New Haven, 2001, pp. 9, 13, No. 31, V 0857 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Anthony Gerbino, Compass and rule : architecture as mathematical practice in England, 1500-1750, Yale University Press, New Haven, USA; London, p. 60, NA1995 .G47 2009+ (YCBA) [YCBA]

Mac Griswold, I'll build a stairway to paradise : a life of Bunny Mellon, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2022, after p. 272, CT275.M469122 G75 2022 [ORBIS]

Thomas Hariot, A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia, University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, 2007, pp. 174-75, pl. III, F229 .H2713 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Theresa M. Kelley, Clandestine marriage, botany and Romantic culture , Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD., 2012, pp. 90-92, fig. 12, PN56.B73 K45 2012 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Jason David LaFountain, The Puritan art world [ PhD Dissertation - Harvard University - May 2013 ], Cambridge, MA, 2013, pp. 142, 387, fig. 154, N6916 .L35 2013A OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Amy Meyers, Modesty and Munificence, Apollo, v. 165, no. 542, April 2007, p. 28-29, fig. 2, N1 A54 + (YCBA) [YCBA]

Paul Mellon's Legacy : a passion for British art [large print labels], , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2007, v. 2, no. 1, N5220 M552 P381 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Kim Sloan, European visions, American voices , no. 172, British Museum Publications, London, 2008, pp. 90,92,108, fig. 10, NJ18 W578 E9 2008 + (YCBA) [YCBA]

The visitations of Cornwall, comprising the Heralds' visitations of 1530, 1573 & 1620, W. Pollard, Exeter, pp. 90, 553, Bb36 012 [ORBIS]

The worshipful company of painters, otherwise painter-stainers : its hall, pictures, and plate, London, p. 50, Ndq22 P2 906p [ORBIS]

Edward Town, A biographical dictionary of London painters, 1547-1625, Walpole Society, 76, Oxford, U.K., p. 40, 57, N12 .W35 A1+ (YCBA) [YCBA]

Giles Waterfield, Mr. Mellon, RA : the magazine for the Friends of the Royal Academy, No. 96, Autumn 2007, pp. 70, 71, V 1905 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Mahonri Sharp Young, The Mellon Drawings at the Morgan, Apollo, vo. 95, April 1972, pp. 330-331, fig. 1, N1 A54 + (YCBA) [YCBA]

If you have information about this object that may be of assistance please contact us.