Francisque Joseph Duret, “Chactas Meditating on Atala’s Tomb”, Cast Bronze, 1836, 135 cm, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon, France

The Romantic sculptor Francisque Duret, born in 1804, presented the model of his “Chactas Meditating on the Grave of Atala” at the Paris Salon of 1836. Several reduced-size bronzes of the sculpture were cast by the Delafontaine foundry after 1848. Duret based this work on Atala, the famous novel published in 1801 by François-René de Chateaubriand, and on Girodet’s iconic painting “The Entombment of Atala”, painted in 1808 and now on exhibit at the Louvre.

This sentimental and edifying tale tells the story of Chactas, an Indian of the Natchez tribe in Louisiana, returning to the grave of his sweetheart, Atala. The Indian girl, recently converted to Christianity, chose to poison herself, despite her love, rather than break her vow of chastity. Seated on an ivy-covered rock, a symbol of remembrance and fidelity, this athlete in mourning represents the so-called “savage” on the path to redemption, for Chactas will be converted in his turn. This moralizing story, according to Emmanuelle Héran, should be understood in the historical context of  the July Monarchy, which viewed religion as a force for order and social stability

Only the exotic accessories identify this “Hercules of the wilderness:”:  the plaited hair, the earring and necklace… Although the nudity suggests “primitive” man, there is undoubtedly a suggestion of the classical era, for there existed few depictions of the American Indian at that time: Chactas became a pioneering image of the Indian in the Western imagination. The new collective psyche that emerged from the turmoil of the Revolution praised sensitivity and depicted man confronting the mystery of his fate, turning away from the heroes of classical antiquity.