NEW YORK, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- An exhibition at the Dahesh Museum of the work of French pioneer ethnographic sculptor Charles Cordier has proved a revelation in the field of fine arts and has rescued one of the 19th century's most acclaimed master artists from near oblivion.
So celebrated was Cordier (1827-1905) in his day that Queen Victoria, on seeing two of his portrait busts at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851, purchased them the following year as a 33rd birthday present for her beloved husband, Prince Albert. Popularly known as "A Negro from Timbuktu (Said Abdallah)" and "African Venus," the busts have been loaned to the exhibition by Queen Elizabeth II, their current owner.
The highly informative catalog for the show titled "Facing the Other" contains a listing of all 617 known sculptures by Cordier, including multiples of some of his most popular sculptures, although the present location of many works is unknown. It will be interesting to see how many of these "missing" Cordiers will appear on the art market in the near future as a result of the Dahesh show.
More than 100 sculptures and other displays related to Cordier are being exhibited through Jan. 9 in this first retrospective exhibition accorded the artist organized by the Musee d'Orsay in Paris. The artist began his career studying drawing at a local art school in Cambrai, then moved to Paris at 19 to study with sculptor Francois Rude of Arc de Triomphe fame.
It was in Rude's studio that he encountered a freed Nubian slave who had become a professional model and sculpted his portrait under the title "Said Abdallah," a version of which was purchased by Queen Victoria. He later matched Abdallah up with a bust he did of a woman ("African Venus") who had been sold into slavery in Guadeloupe and freed several years later by a rich colonist.
It was the beginning of his Cordier's unique ethnographic work, never challenged since by any artist with the exception of Malvina Hoffman, the American sculptor who created a Hall of Man collection for Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History in the 1930s. In Paris, 15 of Cordier's ethnic busts were acquired by the National Museum of Natural History over a period of 20 years.
Recalling the sensation his bust of Said Abdallah created when he exhibited it at the Paris Salon of 1848, the year France abolished slavery at home and in its colonies, Cordier wrote in his memoirs: "It was a revelation for the whole art world ... My genre had the novelty of a new subject, the revolt against slavery, anthropology at its birth."
Cordier was a master of capturing in bronze without exaggeration the racial features of a score of ethnological types native to Africa, particularly Algeria, in Greece and the Middle East, notably Egypt, and China (by modeling Chinese visiting Paris), sometimes adding costume details, such as robes, blouses, shawls, and turbans, in multi-colored onyx-marble, a type of alabaster with rich veining and varied hues.
In sculpting "Said Abdallah" and "African Venus" he caught the nobility of the African black in pensive poses, adding only a touch of gilt to Venus' earrings, although he sometimes colored his bronzes by galvanizing and enameling and even used semi-precious for special effects. A lovely statue in bronze silvered by an electrolytic process depicts an Egyptian peasant woman wearing a necklace and bracelets set with turquoises and corals.
"Because beauty is not the province of a privileged race, I convey to the world of art the idea of the universality of beauty" he observed in his memoirs, which are full of sentiments about the brotherhood of man. He movingly depicted this concept in an 1867 allegorical group sculpture in bronze with gold and black patina showing a black child and a white child embracing. Titled "Love One Another," it was a radical concept at the time.
One of Cordier's earliest busts was of the archbishop of Cambrai and he was in demand as a portrait sculptor of the French nobility and upper middle class. But these busts of General This and Princess That seem bland and somewhat ordinary compared to his ethnological studies, which are riveting without exception.
. He also took on large commissions such as a statue a Christopher Columbus for a Mexico City park, a bronze reduction of which is in the show, and marble caryatid sculptures to support a fireplace mantel in the grand chateau Baron James de Rothchild built near Paris, represented in the show by terra cotta studies.
One of the most curious displays is "Arab Woman," a larger-than-life sculpture acquired by Empress Eugenie, consort of Napoleon III, to illuminate an entrance hall at the Chateau de Compiegne. The silvered bronze body, costumed in a marble gown, is balancing a gold pot on its head from which gaslight would emanate to the delight of imperial guests.
The show catalog by Laure de Margerie and Edouard Papet ("Facing the Other: Charles Cordier," Harry N. Abrams, 256 pages, $65) would make a fine addition to any art-lover's library.
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