Why Born Enslaved!

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux

modeled 1868, carved 1873

Why Born Enslaved! by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux

Medium

Marble

Dimensions

22 7/8 × 16 × 12 1/2 in., 132.7 lb. (58.1 × 40.6 × 31.8 cm, 60.2 kg) Pedestal: 22 × 18 in., 1298 lb. (55.9 × 45.7 cm, 588.8 kg)

Classification

Sculpture

Culture

French

Department

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

Museum

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

Credit

Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace, Wrightsman Fellows, and Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation Gifts, 2019

Accession Number

2019.220

Tags

WomenFemale NudesSlaves

About the Artist

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux · 18271875

Carpeaux's exuberant work was a decisive break from Neoclassical art. He won the Prix de Rome in 1854 and received many portrait bust commissions from the court. His most famous sculpture group is 'La Danse' (1869) made for the Paris Opéra. So bold is its message of bacchanalian revelry that it was vandalized in protest. French artist.

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