Corianton’s story may well capture your attention as it has captured the imagination of many writers, dramatists, and artists, including the famous Book of Mormon painter Minerva Teichert. She once painted a small Corianton scene on 18” x 12” sketchbook-sized paper. Until recently, it was unknown to art collectors, but it came on the market and was purchased not long ago by a private buyer who has shared it generously in BYU Studies. The sketch likely dates to around 1949–1951. Even members of the Minerva Teichert family had never seen or known of it. I am happy to show it here.
The scene depicts Corianton with someone, presumably his brother Shiblon, trying to pull him back, while he is being lured by Isabel, who is in the middle with her dancing friends in the background. The painting did not have a name, but when we published it in BYU Studies, I gave it the name of Isabel’s Seduction of Corianton.
The painting, is clearly based on Alma 39:3–4,
Thou didst do that which was grievous unto me for thou didst forsake the ministry and did go over into the land of Siron among the borders of the Lamanites after the harlot Isabel. Yea she did steal away the hearts of many, but this was no excuse for thee, my son.
The painting was owned by an old Wyoming rancher, to whom Minerva had given it when he lived across the street from her when he was only about 10 years old. He was not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but according to his story, Minerva may have thought that it would help him to resist temptation someday or might interest him in the Book of Mormon.
The story of Corianton had long been very popular, and beginning in 1889, B. H. Roberts, who was 32 years old at the time, ran a series of articles about the Corianton story in the Contributor, an old magazine that was run by the Sunday School program. The stories started with Alma 31 and the mission to Antionum. Roberts wrote of all the problems that were involved, the conversion needed there, and how Alma surely needed Corianton’s help in trying to correct the problems of the Zoramites. But Corianton was evidently influence by some of the people he was trying to convert. The series ended with Corianton’s repentance, and was very a dramatic, fictionalized expansion of the story.
Shortly after that, playwright Orestes U. Bean turned it into a dramatic script, and in 1902 it was performed in the Salt Lake Theater to some acclaim. Twenty years later, Lester and Byron Park helped Bean turn it into a film, but it did not meet with much success.
In 1902, the young Minerva Teichert was taken to the stage production of Corianton by her art teacher, and she wrote in her diary how impressed she was. Elements in the script for the stage play and also in the content of B. H. Roberts’ series are detectable in the painting. It was her way of conveying that story in paint.
The story of Corianton is compelling perhaps because it does not go into the details. It can represent many kinds of serious transgressions that we encounter in our own lives or are asked to help with in our ministering to others. Whether we are Sunday School teachers, youth leaders, ministering brothers or sisters, or a bishop, we can emulate Alma’s example of kindness directness in helping his son come to the point of repentance.
Herman du Toit “Minerva Teichert’s The Seduction of Corianton,” BYU Studies Quarterly 54, No. 2 (2015): 162–165.