Louisiana Indians Walking Along a Bayou

Alfred Boisseau studied art at the École de Beaux Arts in Paris before immigrating to the United States at the age of 22. Boisseau’s brother was the secretary to the French Consul in New Orleans, and he and his wife spent two years living in the city before moving to Cleveland, and later to Montreal. While in Louisiana, Boisseau took particular interest in the state’s Native American population. The 1830s and 1840s witnessed the passage of the Indian Removal Act and devastating atrocities against Native Americans, and Native Americans’ rapidly disappearing culture was the subject of considerable international concern. Boisseau likely saw the much-publicized 1845 exhibition of George Catlin’s Indian Gallery shortly before he left Paris, and may have been inspired by the success of Catlin’s portraits of Northern Plains peoples. Like Catlin’s Indian Gallery, Boisseau’s Louisiana Indians Walking Along a Bayou travelled the world to be exhibited in New York, New Orleans and at the 1847 Paris Salon.