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Pocahontas

A work made of marble.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • A work made of marble.

Date:

1868

Artist:

Joseph Mozier (American, 1812–1870)

About this artwork

This is not a historically accurate vision of Pocahontas but a deeply distorted yet enduring one rooted in myth. Born around 1595 with the name Matoaka, Pocahontas (her Algonquian nickname) was a Powhatan Indian who lived in the Tidewater region of present-day Virginia. A daughter of the leader of a Native confederacy of Algonquian-speaking people, she was kidnapped by British settlers as a young adolescent and taken to Jamestown, where she converted to Christianity, married John Rolfe, and then traveled to England, dying there in 1617.

Joseph Mozier portrayed Pocahontas with a tamed deer at her side and cross in hand, as if her religious and cultural transformation was a peaceful, self-directed act. Such imagery appealed to white audiences in the mid-19th century because it shaped an American origin story of romance, willing conversion, and domesticity, and effaced the violent circumstances of Pocahontas’s life and the brutal conquest of Native American people and lands.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Arts of the Americas

Artist

Joseph Mozier (Sculptor)

Title

Pocahontas

Place

Rome (Object made in)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1868

Medium

Marble

Inscriptions

Signed, dated, and inscribed right side, on base, chiseled: "J. MOZIER. Sc: / ROME. 1868"; titled recto, on base, chiseled: "POCAHONTAS".

Dimensions

122 × 47.7 × 38.9 cm (48 × 18 3/4 × 15 5/16 in.)

Credit Line

The Roger McCormick and J. Peter McCormick funds

Reference Number

1997.366

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/146929/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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