Description
<p>An Indigenous woman holds her head in her hands in the foreground of a tumultuous natural landscape, featuring what appears to be an erupting volcano and towering storm clouds over the ocean. The title of the painting, “Widow of an Indian Chief Watching the Arms of her Deceased Husband,” indicates that she is guarding the tomahawk and other martial gear hung on the tree at her side. Joseph Wright of Derby painted this scene around 1785. An Englishman, he had never traveled to North America, and his knowledge of the Indigenous people of the continent came almost entirely from books. Wright held a fascination with the imagined “noble savages” of America, and this painting could be read as sympathetic to Britain’s Indigenous allies who faced an uncertain future in the newly independent United States.</p>
