The Fountain, No. 1: The Wounded Indian Slaking His Death Thirst

The Fountain, No. 1: The Wounded Indian Slaking His Death Thirst

Thomas Cole

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Cole, the founder of the Hudson River School of landscape painting, drew this study for a series (never realized) of paintings based on William Cullen Bryant’s poem “The Fountain” (1839). The poem evokes several eras of American civilization through incidents that occur at a forest stream. In this scene, a wounded brave (modeled after the Hellenistic sculpture known as the "Dying Gaul," which Cole had seen in Rome) symbolizes the plight of many American Indians in an era of forced relocation. Bryant’s verse reads in part: "I behold/The Indian warrior, whom a hand unseen/Has smitten with his death-wound in the woods, /Creep slowly to thy well-known rivulet,/And slake his death-thirst."

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Fountain, No. 1: The Wounded Indian Slaking His Death ThirstThe Fountain, No. 1: The Wounded Indian Slaking His Death ThirstThe Fountain, No. 1: The Wounded Indian Slaking His Death ThirstThe Fountain, No. 1: The Wounded Indian Slaking His Death ThirstThe Fountain, No. 1: The Wounded Indian Slaking His Death Thirst

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.