Theme

The Arts

Featured Items

Detail of a printed text shows a large, leafy tree. Labels printed below.

Museum Museorum

Michael Bernhard Valentini
1704
Detail of an engraved, hand colored full-page illustration shows a yam.

A collection of exotics, from the Island of Antigua

Lydia Byam
1797
Detail of a printed newspaper shows headline "Negro Slavery" and other text in English.

[Album]

Female Society...for the Relief of British Negro Slaves.
1828-1829
Detail of a blockbook shows woodcut illustration of biblical scene in the garden of eden. A woman holds an apple and is talking to a large snake. Text in Latin also visible.

Biblia pauperum

1460-1470
Detail of a printed book shows a decorated title page depicting an illustration of Sor Juana, angels, indigenous people, and text in Spanish and Latin.

Fama, y obras posthumas del Fenix de Mexico

Juana Inés de la Cruz
1700
Detail of an engraved, hand colored print shows portrait of Hendrick, a Mohawk chief.

The brave old Hendrick the great Sachem or Chief of the Mohawk Indians...

1740
Detail of a printed book shows a colored illustrated dragons on a circular diagram with text in Latin.

Astronomicum cæsareum

Peter Apian
1540
Detail of an embroidered cloth book binding shows letters "JHS" in gold and green beads.

[Abecedario]

1813

Related

Native Americans of present-day Mexico dance around two drummers

Picturing the Past: Indigenous Expressions in Colonial Mexico

Spring 2020
image of an open book with a colorful image of insects on a tropical plant and printed text

By a Lady: Women and Natural History in the Americas, 1650-1830

September 2019
scene of sugar cane planting

Sugar and the Visual Imagination in the Atlantic World, circa 1600-1860

Fall 2013
Our Fellows

Daniel Ruppel, J.M. Stuart Fellow

June 1, 2017

See Also

American Revolutions

Business, Trade, and Economic History