Buste Esclave - Pierre

"Why Be Born a Slave?" is the name given by the sculptor and painter Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1827-1875) to a series of busts he executed around 1870. At the height of his career, enjoying the protection of Napoleon III, Carpeaux received a commission from the city of Paris for the Fontaine de l'Observatoire, for which he deviated from the imposed subject – the four cardinal points – replacing them with four allegorical figures representing Europe, Africa, Asia, and America. It was in the context of the preparatory study on Africa that the bust of the Captive Negress was created. Faithful to his interpretation of movement, it depicts the enslaved woman with her torso constrained in an oblique twist, expressing revolt. History recounts that the woman who served as the model also posed for Charles Cordier's "Capresse des colonies" (1861).