A Statue with a Split Personality

By Doug Kendall, Curator of Collections

Every museum collection has its mystery objects: artifacts whose purpose or provenance is not recorded. This is the story of a work of art that probably seemed quite straightforward when it was acquired, yet may not be exactly what it appears to be.

As readers may recall, I discussed the popularity of Last of the Mohicans merchandise in the 19^th century in a previous post. Today’s subject is another object associated with James Fenimore Cooper’s most famous novel: a bronzed figure of a Native American holding a bow, wearing a loin cloth, headdress and beads. The figure stands alert, looking intently to his left, a club and a quiver of arrows at his feet. On one end of the sculpture’s base is a label cast in Gothic letters: “The last of the Mohicans.”

Last of the Mohicans, or, Caupolican. Zinc, bronzed. Reduction after the original by Nicanor Plaza, 1844-1918, Paris, France, 1890-1910. Gift of Harry St. Clair Zogbaum, N0643.1943

So when I received a call from Donald Fennimore, Curator Emeritus at the Winterthur Museum asking to see our Last of the Mohicans statue , I had to search the database and the storage facility carefully before I found it. I studied with Don at the University of Delaware many years ago and gladly made an appointment for him to view the sculpture, but I did some digging on my own to discover why this object might be of interest.

There were a few clues in the catalog and on the object itself. The artist was listed simply as “N. Plaza;” I soon discovered that this was Nicanor Plaza (1844-1918), a Chilean sculptor who studied and worked in Italy and France and has been revered as a pioneer in Chilean art. This seemed a bit odd, as the Museum concentrates on art and artists of the United States.

Translating some sites that discussed Plaza’s career using Google’s Translate (which can give you the general meaning while stumbling over idiom and colloquial phrases), I came across a photo of the same figure—only this one is life-size and overlooks the Chilean capitol, Santiago. And it’s titled Caupolicán, not Last of the Mohicans. I’d found the source of a controversy over Plaza’s work and the reason for Don’s interest in the sculpture. Caupolicán was a leader of the Mapuche resistance to the Spanish conquest in the 1550s. Although he was ultimately captured and executed by the Spanish, he remains a hero to Chileans of indigenous ancestry, so the statue—installed in 1910—is a symbol of national pride.

Caupolican, as installed, Santiago, Chile. Bronze. Nicanor Plaza, 1844-1918. Santiago, Chile.

There’s some evidence that Plaza had entered the figure in a competition to memorialize Fenimore Cooper. After he failed to win that commission, he received a request for a figure of Caupolicán. Rather than waste the work he had put into the American competition, Plaza “re-purposed” the statue for his homeland. Or so the speculation goes. Over the years, Chileans have sometimes raised the question of why “Caupolicán” appears in non-Mapuche garb.

Don Fennimore is attempting to determine the specifics of the competition for which Plaza is said to have created the figure.

There is perhaps more than a bit of irony in the creation by a Chilean of Spanish ancestry working in Europe of a statue that has been identified as both a North American Mohican and a South American Mapuche. It will be interesting to see whether Don can establish the origin of Plaza’s project.