An African Woman (L'Afrique or Une Negresse)

This African woman’s struggle against ropes binding her arms and chest—and the inscription on the base, “Pourquoi naître esclave” (“why be born a slave”)—reinforce the topicality of slavery and colonialism in 1869, when leading French sculptor Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux won the commission for a monumental fountain. The final version, which was completed in 1874, is still on view in Paris in the Jardin de l’Observatoire, and it contains the full-length figure of Africa, joined by three others representing the continents of Asia, Europe, and America. Together, the four personified continents support a celestial globe. In the final sculpture, the rope has been replaced by a shackle around Africa’s ankle, held under the foot of the figure America, alluding to the institution of slavery in the United States, that had only recently been abolished. Carpeaux’s realist style indicates great attention to texture and delicate modeling. The dynamism and expressive realism of Carpeaux’s figures, which shocked some viewers at the time, opened the way for Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) and other pioneers of modern sculpture.