A Journey Between Science and the Arts

Native to America, the pineapple— Ananas comosus (L.) Merr.—delighted the Europeans who came across it. The fruit was mentioned by the voyagers and missionaries who observed and tasted it in the Americas and, from the 1500s onwards, infused reports, chronicles and natural history treatises with colour and flavour. As the fruit was unable to withstand Atlantic crossings, it could only reach Europe as a preserve or in the form of textual descriptions or illustrations. In this essay, I will suggest the origin of the printed images which served as templates for two eighteenth‐century pieces produced in the East. I will propose a justification for using these illustrations as sources of inspiration

Depiction · Natural (archaeology · Natural history · Natural materials · Historical Economic and Legal Thought · Pineapple and bromelain studies · Sephardic Jews and Inquisition Studies