Tablet dedicated to Jolliet and Marquette

These oblong, shallowly carved tablets, mounted to the inner parapet walls of DuSable Bridge show in figures of French explorers and their American Indian guides rowing and disembarking from their canoes. In both tablets, the figures move as if in concert, in front of an ideal space with no indication of place, but rather against a blank background.
Photo ©: Jyoti Srivastava

Title

Tablet dedicated to Jolliet and Marquette

Date

1925

Artist

Unknown

Location

DuSable Bridge

Context

This is one of two bronze bas-relief plaques placed on either railing of the walkways of DuSable Bridge, honoring the European explorers who were introduced by American Indians to the portage that linked Lake Michigan and the Chicago River to the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers. The inscription reads: "In honor of Louis Jolliet & Pere Jacques Marquette. The first white men to pass through the Chicago River - September 1673. This tablet is placed by the Illinois Society of Colonial Dames of America under the auspices of the Chicago Historical Society - 1925."