Painter in a Savage Land

Starred review from April 28, 2008
Harvey (The Island of Lost Maps
) embarks on a fascinating exploration of the obscure life and violent times of Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, who arrived in America in 1564, almost half a century before the English at Jamestown. The drawings he left, virtually forgotten until a few years ago, when they began fetching towering prices at Sotheby's, depict in almost photographic detail a now extinct Native American world. Harvey, his curiosity sparked during a visit to Jacksonville, Fla.—near the site of Le Moyne's doomed colony of French Protestants—uncovered “a tale replete with shipwrecks, mutinies, religious wars, political intrigues, pirate raids, Indian attacks, famines, hurricanes, and mass murders.” This book doubles as a narrative of Harvey's own expedition to discover more about his subject and the story of Le Moyne's works in the centuries after his death—and their sad fate at the hands of a New York antiquities dealer. Harvey's volume hits the sweet spot for both adventure buffs and history fans. 4 pages of color illus., b&w illus. throughout.

Starred review from June 1, 2008
From a doomedFrench fort on what became the site for Jacksonville, Florida, to the streets of Paris and London, where Huguenots and Lutherans were burned at the stake, to the auction rooms of Sothebys, the dramatic story of the long-lost artist Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues is a veritable tale of nine lives. Historian Harvey (The Island of Lost Maps, 2000) marvels at the "epic strangeness" of his subjects complicated life story. Le Moyne was the first artist sent to North America when he set sail from Le Havre in 1564 with 300 men sent to stake a claim for France in Florida but fated to suffer starvation and violent death. Le Moyne not only survived and returned home;he also managed to create marvelously stylized drawings of the tragically doomed Timucuan people. He then escaped religious persecution in France and found sanctuary in London, where he became a leading botanical artist and advisor to Walter Raleigh. Its one astonishing discovery after anotheras Harvey retrieves the buried truth about Le Moyne and chronicles the nearly miraculous preservation of his work. With hugely entertaining side journeys, energetic analysis, and a diabolical surprise ending, Harveys groundbreaking, fun-to-read biography blows the dust off significant swathes of history and makes for a rousing read.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)