John White (English artist, c 1540-1593) Indian Woman and Baby of Pomeiooc
The woman is standing to the left, her back to the observer, her head turned towards the front, looking over her left shoulder. She carries a naked child on her back who grips her shoulders with both arms and whose left leg is tucked under and through her left arm, while the right leg hangs down. Her hair forms what now appears to be a grey cap and from it some straggling hairs emerge in a fringe at the front and loosely at the neck. Her upper arms are decorated with bands of zigzag and other patterns, either painted or tattooed. She wears a double apron-skirt of fringed skin which reaches half-way down her thighs.
Inscribed in brown ink, along the top, "The wyfe of an Herowan of Pomeiooc."
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 eyewitness illustrations of an early Native American society of the Eastern seaboard.
