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

Sloan, Kim

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807858250 ISBN 13: 9780807858257

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.

Edition details

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807858250
• ISBN 13: 9780807858257
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256