Woman from the French Colonies

Charles-Henri-Joseph Cordier French
 Pedestal attributed to designs by Charles-François Rossigneux French

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 556

Cordier’s early portraits of black people were intended for France’s new ethnographic museum in Paris, where they would empirically document the “pure” racial types of “other” cultures. These representations are composites of individuals Cordier encountered during his travels to North Africa. Exquisite though they are, and despite his ambitions to expand the Western definition of beauty through his art, Cordier’s generalized portraits contributed to the French colonialist fascination with non-Western cultures through their spectacular racial essentialism.

Woman from the French Colonies, Charles-Henri-Joseph Cordier (French, 1827–1905), Algerian onyx-marble, bronze, and enamel; white marble socle, French, Paris

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Woman from the French Colonies, Charles-Henri-Joseph Cordier (French, 1827–1905), Algerian onyx-marble, bronze, and enamel; white marble socle, French, Paris
Woman from the French Colonies, Charles-Henri-Joseph Cordier (French, 1827–1905), Algerian onyx-marble, bronze, and enamel; white marble socle, French, Paris
Woman from the French Colonies, Charles-Henri-Joseph Cordier (French, 1827–1905), Algerian onyx-marble, bronze, and enamel; white marble socle, French, Paris

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