New photography by Ed Pollard captured with a digital camera-2008.

The Willing Captive

Artist Chauncey Bradley Ives (American, 1810 - 1894)

CultureAmerican

Datemodeled ca. 1862-68, carved 1871

MediumMarble

DimensionsOverall: 73 x 64 3/8 x 27 5/8 in. (185.4 x 163.5 x 70.2 cm)

InscribedInscribed on the base, at right:; C. B. IVES; FECIT; ROMÆ 1871

Credit LineGift of James H. Ricau and museum purchase

Object number86.480

Collections

American Art before 1945

On View

On view

DescriptionThis is a multi-figured marble sculpture of an Indian standing nobly at center, flanked by his "captive" wife and her mother, who implores for her return. The Indian holds a long spear and wears a tall headdress. The woman, the mother, on his right is on her knees with her hands together in a pleading fashion. He has his left arm around a young girl with long hair wearing a drape tied about the waist. The young woman holds onto the man with both arms. Over the Indians' right arm is a long cloak. He looks downward at the young woman.

Label TextChauncey Bradley Ives American, 1810—1894 The Willing Captive, modeled ca. 1862-68, carved 1871 Marble This imposing multi-figure composition was modeled in Rome where Chauncey Bradley Ives had maintained a studio since 1844. The subject presents an amalgam of colonial-era stories of conflict and exchange between settlers and Native Americans. Here, the young girl on the right must choose between her Euro-American mother kneeling on the left and her Native American husband. Though the sculpture appeals heavily to romantic sentiment typical of the Victorian period, the semi-nude figures demonstrate Ives’s thorough study of classical statuary and embrace of neoclassical style. Gift of James H. Ricau and Museum purchase 86.480 ProvenancePeter C. Cornell, Brooklyn, N.Y.; ...; West African missionaries, Pearl River, N.J.; James H. Ricau, Piermont, N.Y., by ca. 1983; Gift of James H. Ricau and Chrysler Museum of Art Purchase, 1986. Exhibition History"The Ricau Collection," The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Va., February 26 - April 23, 1989. Published ReferencesHenry T. Tuckerman, _Book of the Artists_ (New York: J. F. Carr, 1867), 583. "New Statue for Newark: Dr. J. Ackerman Coles's Generous Gift to the City," _Sentinel of Freedom_ (September 10, 1895), 8. William Todd, "Chauncey Bradley Ives, Sculptor," _Publications of the Hamden Historical Society_ (1938), 55. William H. Gerdts, "The Marble Savage," _Art in America_ 62 (July 1974): 68. Joy S. Kasson, _Marble Queens and Captives: Women in Nineteenth-Century American Sculpture_ (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 98-100. ISBN: 0300045964 H. Nichols B. Clark, _A Marble Quarry: The James H. Ricau Collection of Sculpture at The Chrysler Museum of Art_ (New York: Hudson Hills Press, Inc., 1997), 107-109, no. 22. ISBN: 1555951317 Martha N. Hagood and Jefferson C. Harrison, _American Art at the Chrysler Museum: Selected Paintings, Sculpture, and Drawings_ (Norfolk, Va.: Chrysler Museum of Art, 2005), 78-79, no. 43. ISBN: 0-940744-71-6