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The Natchez

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The Natchez
ArtistEugène Delacroix
Year1834–35
LocationMetropolitan Museum of Art

The Natchez is an oil-on-canvas painting executed ca. 1834–35 by the French Romantic artist Eugène Delacroix. It depicts a Native American couple with their newborn child. The painting was inspired by a passage in Chateaubriand's Atala, which describes the family as the last members of the Natchez tribe after a massacre committed by the French. Delacroix referred to the figures in the painting as "savages", yet he also showed an admiration for the beauty of the cultural objects surrounding them, such as jewelry, tools, and clothing.[1] The painting reflects Delacroix's recurring fascination with the persecution of the innocent, a theme he had previously explored in The Massacre at Chios.[2]

References

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  1. ^ O'Brien, David (2018). Exiled in Modernity: Delacroix, Civilization, and Barbarism. Pennsylvania State University Press. pp. 18–19.
  2. ^ Johnson, Lee (1991). Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863): Paintings, Drawings, and Prints from North American Collections. Metropolitan Museum of Art. p. 28.
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