Lot n° 500
Estimation :
1500 - 2000
EUR
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Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1827-1875) after - Lot 500
Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1827-1875) after
Pourquoi Naître Esclave
Black patina plaster bust (traces of wear, pedestal cracked)
Height: 60 cm
Pourquoi Naître Esclave is one of the most important works by
Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux depicting an oppressed black woman. Commissioned by the Prefect of the Seine in 1867, the model was executed in 1868 as a study for one of the figures in the
Fontaine des Quatre-Parties-du-Monde, near the Luxembourg Gardens.
Exhibited at the 1869 Salon under the title Négresse, the bust caused quite a stir. Théophile Gauthier described it as follows in the Journal
Officiel: "La Négresse, with the rope that binds her arms to her back and wrinkles her breast, raises to heaven the only thing a slave has that is free, her gaze, a gaze of despair and silent reproach, a useless appeal for justification, a dull protest against the crushing of destiny.
It's a piece of rare vigor where ethnographic accuracy is dramatized by a profound sense of pain."
During his lifetime, Carpeaux produced several limited editions of this model in bronze, terracotta, cookie and plaster. After his death, his family also produced posthumous prints.
Provenance
Paris private collection
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