Sudanese Man and Woman from the French Colonies

Charles Cordier played a pioneering role in the revival of polychromed sculpture in France, often combining rare colored marbles with cast bronze to create visually arresting and complex representations. As the most significant sculptor to apply his art to the nascent field of ethnography, Cordier advocated for “the idea of the universality of beauty” and gained international fame for his sensitive depictions of Black and Asian sitters.

Cordier modeled the Sudanese Man during a French governmental mission to Algeria in 1856. The sitter, a native of Sudan whose name is unrecorded, lived in Algiers and had the respected role of tam-tam player for religious festivities organized before the start of Ramadan. Cordier most likely met the model for the Woman from the French Colonies, which he sculpted in 1861, in Paris; her identity is likewise unknown. Characteristic of the racialized terms commonly used in Europe, Cordier titled the busts “Nègre du Soudan” or “Nègre en costume algérien” and “Câpresse des Colonies,” a term defining a person born from a Black parent and a biracial parent and who usually lived in the French colony of the Antilles.

The busts were shown by Cordier as a pair at numerous exhibitions. They exemplify his skills at portraiture and demonstrate his experimentation with polychrome materials like silver, bronze, gilded bronze, and onyx-marble–an alabaster extracted from Algerian quarries, distinctive for its translucent white and yellowish hues and rich ocher-colored veining.