Related page: Fanciful Figures

To represent a scene of religious practice in Virginia, the unnamed artist for Montanus's America found an icon in a 1622 Spanish book about Mexico, Descripcion de las Indias Occidentales, by Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas. The artist then transformed the Mexican icon into a large idol and placed it in a room modeled on a Mexican temple. The scene falsely presented native Virginia as a cultural province of Mexico.