Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues

Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues had a varied and astonishing career. Although large periods of his career are undocumented, he appears to have worked as a court artist in France, under Charles IX, is known to have travelled to Florida in 1564, as official artist and cartographer to the ill-fated French attempt to establish a colony there, and to have ended his career as a highly regarded botanical artist in Elizabethan London, where his patrons included Sir Walter Raleigh and Lady Mary Sidney.

The exquisite gouaches he produced combine in the most original manner three diverse artistic traditions: the first is that of manuscript illumination in Le Moyne’s native France; the second is the recording of exotic and native flora, fauna and cultures, which was the artistic expression of the late 16^th-century fascination with exploration and scientific investigation; and the third is the purely aesthetic love of flowers and gardens which was so apparent in Elizabethan court culture.