![Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson - The Entombment of Atala [c.1808] by Gandalf's Gallery](http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5343/9434978736_32e2ccb0ac.jpg)
Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson - The Entombment of Atala [c.1808], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.
In the sunset, in a cave, the old hermit, Father Aubry, is supporting the corpse of the half-caste Atala. Chactas the Indian, stricken with grief, clings passionately to the young woman's knees. Atala, torn between her love for Chactas and the vow she took to remain a virgin and a Christian, committed suicide. With a crucifix clutched in her hand and the drapery of her dress clinging to her bust, she is both pure and sensual. After their all-night vigil, the two men will bury her in the cave. A verse from the Book of Job is carved on the cave wall: "When it is yet in flower, and is not plucked with the hand, it withereth before all herbs." Girodet drew his subject from Chateaubriand's Atala, or the Loves of Two Savages in the Wilderness (1801), set in America in the 17th century.
[Louvre Museum, Paris - Oil on canvas, 207 x 267 cm]