Jacques Le Moyne

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One of the engravings based on LeMoyne's drawings, depicting Athore, son of the Timucuan king Satouriona, showing Laudonnière the monument placed by Ribault.

Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues (c.1533 – 1588) was a French artist and member of Jean Ribault's expedition to the New World. His depictions of Native American and colonial life are of extraordinary historical importance.

[edit] Biography

[edit] Expedition

Born in Dieppe, France, Le Moyne was an artist who accompanied the French expedition of Jean Ribault and René Laudonnière in from 1562, when they arrived at the St. Johns River, to 1564, when they founded Fort Caroline.^[1] Painting in the Calvinist style, he is mostly known for his artistic depictions of the landscape, flora, fauna, and, most importantly, the inhabitants of the New World encountered by the French and Spanish. His drawings of the cultures commonly referred to as the Timucua are largely regarded as some of the most accessible data about the cultures of the Southeastern Coastal United States. During this expedition he became known as a cartographer and an illustrator as he painted landscapes and reliefs of the land they crossed.

Ribault explored the mouth of the St. Johns River in Florida and erected a stone monument there before leading the party north and establishing a settlement on Parris Island, South Carolina. He then sailed back to France for supplies while Laudonnière took charge of the colony. Finding conditions unfavorable on Parris Island Laudonnière and the others eventually moved back to Florida where they founded Fort Caroline on the St. Johns Bluff in what is now Jacksonville.

A year later, the settlers engaged in a conflict with the Spanish colony of St. Augustine thirty miles to the south. The Spanish, under the leadership of Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, stormed the colony and killed most of the Huguenots, though Laudonnière and Le Moyne escaped and were eventually rescued to England.

[edit] Paintings

All but one of Le Moyne's original drawings were reportedly destroyed in the Spanish attack on Fort Caroline; most the images attributed to him are actually engravings created by the Dutch printer and publisher Theodor de Bry, which are based on recreations Le Moyne produced from memory. These reproductions, distributed by Le Moyne in printed volumes, are some of the earliest images of European colonization in the New World to be circulated. Le Moyne died in London in 1588, and his detailed account of the voyage, Brevis narratio eorum quae in Florida Americai provincia Gallis acciderunt, was published in 1591. A re-edition of his paintings including critical response has been published in 1977 by the British Museum.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Heller, Henry. (2002) Labour, Science and Technology in France, 1500-1620, Cambridge University Press. p. 79. ISBN 0-521-89380-1.
• Jacques LeMoyne
• Images of the engravings