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Lot Essay
The sensitive and highly accomplished, decorative and impressively accurate depictions of flora and fauna by Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues are what remains of an equally colorful, adventurous and at times dramatic life (P. Hulton, The Work of Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues. A Huguenot Artist in France, Florida, and England, London, 1977, 2 vols.). Born in Dieppe, the artist was sent to Florida by the French King Charles IX in 1564 as a cartographer. Le Moyne wrote an account of this expedition, which ended with bloodshed when the Spanish took over the French colony. Soon after his return to France, Le Moyne, a Huguenot, saw himself forced to flee again, this time to England, where Sir Walter Raleigh became his most important patron, and prompted him to produce a book about his experience in the New World, published by Theodor de Bry under the title Brevis narration eorum quae in Florida, Americae provincia Gallis acciderunt (Frankfurt, 1591). In 1586, shortly before Le Moyne’s death, another book La Clef des champs, had been published in London, with woodcut illustrations of plants and animals based on his designs.
Not surprisingly, the main collections of his drawings are British– an album with 59 botanical watercolors in the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. AM.3267Z-1856- AM.3267HH-1856), and fifty sheets in the British Museum (inv. 1962,0714.1.1-1962,0714.1.51; see Hulton, op. cit., I, pp. 155-162, and 165-173, II, pls. 1-5, 17-33b, and 8-12, 35-48b, respectively; for a digital reconstruction of the former album, see www.vam.ac.uk; for the latter album, see also P. Stein in French Drawings from Clouet to Seurat, exhib. cat., New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and London, British Museum, 2005-2006, nos. 10, 11, ill.). The drawings contained in the latter album, some related to the woodcuts in La Clef des champs, seem to date from the end of Le Moyne’s career, as do two groups of highly finished miniatures – those contained in an album in the Garden Library Rare Book Collection at Dumbarton Oaks Museum in Washington, D.C. (shelf mark C-3-1 LEM), and a group from the Korner collection, sold at Sotheby’s, New York, 29 January 1997, lot 55-60 (Hulton, op. cit., I, pp. 174-176, and 173-174, II, pls. 15a, 15b, 51-53d, and 13, 14, 49a-50b, respectively; for the Dumbarton Oaks album, see also its digital facsimile on www.doaks.org). These, together with a handful of loose sheets, form the core of Le Moyne’s œuvre, and have allowed scholars, Paul Hulton in the first place, to reconstruct his life and work.
At least two other groups can be dated early in the artist’s career, almost certainly from before his move to England, based on watermarks and inscriptions in French: a group of 22 sheets of studies made from life, first sold at Sotheby’s, New York, 21 January 2004, lots 29-50; five of these reappeared more recently at the sale Christie’s, New York, 31 January 2019, lots 24-28); and the album of no less than eighty drawings on paper prepared as vellum of plants and flowers and a frontispiece, sold at Sotheby’s, New York, 26 January 2005, lot 46, dismembered by the buyer after the sale. The sheet offered originally belonged to this album as folio 36. Depictions of clove pinks, or carnations, appear in a number of works by Le Moyne de Morgues, namely at, the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. AM.3267F-1856 recto), the British Museum (fig. 1; inv. 1962,0714.1.15), the Korner group sold in 1997, and the album at Dumbarton Oaks (Hulton, op. cit., I, nos. 6 recto, 50, 88, 98, II, pls. 21a, 39b, 49b, 15b), as well as in the group sold in 2004 (lot 32), the album sold in the year after (in addition to the sheet under discussion, folios 28, 31, 32), and a woodcut in La Clef des Champs (Hulton, op. cit., I, no. P66, II, pl. 83b). The quality and refinement of each of these drawings not only delight the eye, but also secure the artist’s place as ‘one of the earliest and most gifted botanical painters’ in European art (P. Hulton in The Dictionary of Art, London, 1996, XIX, p. 143).
Fig. 1. Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, Clove pinks. British Museum, London.
Not surprisingly, the main collections of his drawings are British– an album with 59 botanical watercolors in the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. AM.3267Z-1856- AM.3267HH-1856), and fifty sheets in the British Museum (inv. 1962,0714.1.1-1962,0714.1.51; see Hulton, op. cit., I, pp. 155-162, and 165-173, II, pls. 1-5, 17-33b, and 8-12, 35-48b, respectively; for a digital reconstruction of the former album, see www.vam.ac.uk; for the latter album, see also P. Stein in French Drawings from Clouet to Seurat, exhib. cat., New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and London, British Museum, 2005-2006, nos. 10, 11, ill.). The drawings contained in the latter album, some related to the woodcuts in La Clef des champs, seem to date from the end of Le Moyne’s career, as do two groups of highly finished miniatures – those contained in an album in the Garden Library Rare Book Collection at Dumbarton Oaks Museum in Washington, D.C. (shelf mark C-3-1 LEM), and a group from the Korner collection, sold at Sotheby’s, New York, 29 January 1997, lot 55-60 (Hulton, op. cit., I, pp. 174-176, and 173-174, II, pls. 15a, 15b, 51-53d, and 13, 14, 49a-50b, respectively; for the Dumbarton Oaks album, see also its digital facsimile on www.doaks.org). These, together with a handful of loose sheets, form the core of Le Moyne’s œuvre, and have allowed scholars, Paul Hulton in the first place, to reconstruct his life and work.
At least two other groups can be dated early in the artist’s career, almost certainly from before his move to England, based on watermarks and inscriptions in French: a group of 22 sheets of studies made from life, first sold at Sotheby’s, New York, 21 January 2004, lots 29-50; five of these reappeared more recently at the sale Christie’s, New York, 31 January 2019, lots 24-28); and the album of no less than eighty drawings on paper prepared as vellum of plants and flowers and a frontispiece, sold at Sotheby’s, New York, 26 January 2005, lot 46, dismembered by the buyer after the sale. The sheet offered originally belonged to this album as folio 36. Depictions of clove pinks, or carnations, appear in a number of works by Le Moyne de Morgues, namely at, the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. AM.3267F-1856 recto), the British Museum (fig. 1; inv. 1962,0714.1.15), the Korner group sold in 1997, and the album at Dumbarton Oaks (Hulton, op. cit., I, nos. 6 recto, 50, 88, 98, II, pls. 21a, 39b, 49b, 15b), as well as in the group sold in 2004 (lot 32), the album sold in the year after (in addition to the sheet under discussion, folios 28, 31, 32), and a woodcut in La Clef des Champs (Hulton, op. cit., I, no. P66, II, pl. 83b). The quality and refinement of each of these drawings not only delight the eye, but also secure the artist’s place as ‘one of the earliest and most gifted botanical painters’ in European art (P. Hulton in The Dictionary of Art, London, 1996, XIX, p. 143).
Fig. 1. Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, Clove pinks. British Museum, London.