A New World: England's First View of America - Hardcover

Sloan, Kim

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807831255 ISBN 13: 9780807831250

Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press, 2007

Synopsis

This beautifully illustrated book reproduces in full the famous and rarely seen British Museum collection of drawings and watercolors made by John White, who in 1585 accompanied a group of English settlers sent by Sir Walter Raleigh to found a colony on Roanoke Island, North Carolina. White’s duties included making visual records of everything he encountered that was then unknown in England, including plants, animals, and birds, as well as the human inhabitants, especially their dress, weapons, tools, and ceremonies. The collection also includes White’s watercolors of Florida and Brazilian Indians and of the Inuit encountered by Martin Frobisher. Here each work is reproduced in color and supplemented by engravings by Theodor de Bry and other comparable works.

Kim Sloan’s introduction sets the scene, followed by chapters placing John White and his work in their historical, cultural, and artistic contexts. Joyce Chaplin explores how White’s contemporaries viewed his work and Christian Feest assesses its accuracy as historical documentation. Ute Kuhlemann examines the role of de Bry, White’s Frankfurt publisher and engraver. The book explores John White’s role as a colonist, surveyor, and artist who not only recorded plants and animals but also provided Elizabethan England with its first glimpse of a now-lost American Indian culture and way of life.

About this title

About the Author

Kim Sloan is curator of British drawings and watercolors and Francis Finlay Curator of the Enlightenment Gallery in the British Museum. Her three previous books include “A Noble Art”: Amateur Artists and Drawing Masters, c. 1600–1800.

From the Inside Flap

This beautifully illustrated book reproduces in full the famous and rarely seen British Museum collection of drawings and watercolors made by John White, who in 1585 accompanied a group of English settlers sent by Sir Walter Raleigh to found a colony on Roanoke Island, North Carolina. Sloan's introduction is followed by three specially commissioned essays covering John White himself, the indigenous inhabitants he depicted, and the historical context of his visit. The book explores John White's role as a colonist, surveyor, and artist who not only recorded plants and animals but also provided a window on a now-lost Native American culture and way of life. Oversize, with 185 color illustrations.

Reviews

Elizabethan artist John White, a gentleman of the court and a friend of Sir Walter Raleigh, made five voyages to the new world from 1584 to 1590 and provided England its first look at Native Americans and their home through his watercolor and ink illustrations. Author and British Museum curator Sloan devotes her first six chapters to historical background, placing White's voyages to the New World in context; not only would White be appointed governor of Roanoke colony, he would also became grandfather to the first European born in North America. The remainder of the book catalogues White's 75 watercolors (lost in the 16th century, rediscovered in 1788 and bought by the British Museum in 1866), which include renderings of Native Americans, Inuit, flora, fauna and maps. Sloan excels in explaining the images' historical significance: White's watercolors of Native Americans are remarkable for their sympathetic portrayal of real individuals-painted at a time when tribes like the Inuit were considered "barely human" by the English-and provide information about status, apparel, weapons and personal character. White's skill also extended to cartography: his detailed map of the Virginia coast has proven accurate when compared against modern satellite photography. A visual treat throughout, Sloan's collection is fully explicated, thoroughly sourced and handsomely presented.
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Edition details

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807831255
• ISBN 13: 9780807831250
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256