Join a panel of scholars for a symposium that examines Western sculpture in relation to the histories of transatlantic slavery, colonialism, and empire. Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Fictions of Emancipation: Carpeaux Recast.
Session 3: Beauty and Difference
The following presentations examine the representation of beauty in depictions of the Black figure in nineteenth-century Western art.
Why Born Enslaved! A Portrait Type
Edouard Papet
Chief Curator of Sculpture, Musée d’Orsay, Paris
Paper read aloud by Elyse Nelson, Assistant Curator, European Sculpture and Decorative Arts
Miscegenation in Marble and Blackness in Bronze: Race, Slavery, and Beauty in the Sculpture of John Bell
Mia L. Bagneris
Associate Professor, Art History & Africana Studies, and Director, Africana Studies Program, Tulane University
Discussion
Chaired by Judy Sund
Professor of Art History, Queens College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York
Original Air Date: Thursday, April 28, 2022
The symposium is made possible by Mr. and Mrs. Richard Lockwood Chilton, Jr.
Fictions of Emancipation: Carpeaux Recast is on view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 521, Wrightsman Exhibition Gallery, through March 5, 2023.
The exhibition is made possible by the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Foundation.
Additional support is provided by Allen R. Adler and Frances F. L. Beatty.
© 2022 The Metropolitan Museum of Art
