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Why Born Enslaved!

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Why Born Enslaved!

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux

modeled 1868, carved 1873

Medium

Marble

Tags

Women Female Nudes Slaves

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)

Collection

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

Credit

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

Classification

Sculpture

Department

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

Culture

French

Rights

Public Domain

About Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux

1827–1875 • France

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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