Engraving of Idols of Secotam Village in Virginia 'or now North Carolina', 1721

Name: Engraving of Idols of Secotam Village in Virginia 'or now North Carolina', 1721
Brand: American Maps and Prints
SKU: BGI-01165
Price: 490 USD
Availability: InStock

$490

€440 · dollar price at today's exchange rate

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Shipping to the United States: $51 standard, $73 express, insured and tracked.

Date: 1721
Kind: Native Peoples
Size: 35.5 × 24 cm (14 × 9.4 in)
Period: Colonial America
Places: North Carolina, Virginia
Reference: BGI-01165

What the condition grades mean

Excellent: Bright and clean, with no faults worth mentioning.
Very good: Only light signs of age, such as faint toning.
Good: Normal signs of age for a sheet of this period: toning, some foxing, small marks or neat old repairs.
Fair: Clear faults such as staining, tears or repairs, priced to match.

Every fault we see is written in the condition note, and the whole sheet is shown uncropped in the photos.

Guaranteed original. This is an original of the period stated, not a later reproduction or print-on-demand copy. If it is ever shown to be otherwise, we refund you in full.

Shipping to the United States. Sent from our gallery in Langweer, the Netherlands, flat between boards or rolled in a tube, and fully insured. Delivery and import charges.

About this piece

Kiwasa, idole des Virginiens, and Le Dieu des Vents, autre idole des Virginiens, two images of the religion of the Virginia Algonquians on one plate, an original copper engraving of 1721 by Bernard Picart from Ceremonies et coutumes religieuses. Each image is captioned beneath it.

In the upper image the idol Kiwasa is shown as a seated figure with crossed legs, decorated with a necklace and a girdle, set on a raised platform of mats within a woven round temple, its walls drawn aside to show him. The old caption states that the idol was placed in the temple of the town of Secotam as the keeper of the bodies of the dead kings. The lower image shows the god of the winds, a standing figure with plumed head, holding an emblem on a pole in each hand, on a plain pedestal inside a rectangular mat hut. Both subjects derive from early English accounts of the Roanoke colony of the 1580s.

Picart (1673 to 1733) was a French painter and engraver who worked in Amsterdam, and his illustrated survey of the world's religious ceremonies was widely read in the early eighteenth century.

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