The woman is standing, facing half-right with arms folded. Her hair is fringed in front and hangs in wisps at the side and back and is secured by a headband of twisted material. There is a suggestion of an ear ornament. She is wearing a double apron-skirt of fringed skin, ornamented with a double row of beads or pearls. The tassels of the fringe below the waist are heightened, as they are on the lower fringe, with white (oxidized) and show traces of gold. The skirt reaches nearly half-way down the thighs. She is elaborately painted or tattooed with bluish lines on her cheeks, forehead and chin, a simulated necklace ending at a point between her breasts, and patterns on the upper and lower arms and on the calves and instep.
Inscribed in dark brown ink, along the top, "The wyfe of an Herowan of Secotan."
John White (English artist, c 1540-1593) was an English artist & early pioneer of English efforts to settle North America. He was among those who sailed with Richard Grenville to the shore of present-day North Carolina in 1585, acting as artist & mapmaker to the expedition. During his time at Roanoke Island he made a number of watercolor sketches of the surrounding landscape and the native Algonkin peoples. These works are significant as they are the most informative illustrations of a Native American society of the Eastern seaboard.
