Bust of a Woman

Inscriptions

Inscribed and dated: 1851 / CCORDIER

Provenance

Cast in Paris, 1851 and believed to be the original pair cast for the artist [see letter from Gerald Kerin in curatorial object file]. Sold directly by the artist to an English (Devon) private collector, 1851 [according to letter from William Redford, in curatorial file; Cordier brought ethnographic busts to the 1862 London Exposition, see Exotische Welten, p. 357]. Purchased from same collector by William Redford, the agent for Gerald Kerin, Ltd. [see same letter in curatorial file]. Sold by Gerald Kerin, Ltd. to the Art Institute, 1963.

Exhibition history

New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fictions of Emancipation: Carpeaux's Why Born Enslaved! Reconsidered, Mar. 7, 2022-Mar. 5, 2023, pl. 30.

Publications

"R. & M. Andrade," Apollo 121, 423 (1960), p. x. Art Institute of Chicago, Annual Report, 1963-64, p. 19. John Maxon, Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly 58, 1 (1964). S. Réveilluad Kriz, L'Odyssée d'un peintre: Drouet Réveilluad (Paris: Fischbacher, 1973), p. 17. Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, Württembergischer Kunstverein, Exotische Welten, Europäsische phantasien (1987), pp. 357, 491, no. 3.62. New York, Charles Janoray, LLC, A Golden Age of French Sculpture, 1850-1900 (2003), p. 40, fig. 2. Paris, Musée d'Orsay, Charles Cordier, 1827-1905: l'autre et l'ailleurs (2004), pp. 19, 205, no. 475. For comparison, see: Stanislas Lami, Dictionnaire des sculpteurs de l’école Francaise au dix-neuviéme siècle 1, reprint (Liechtenstein, 1970), p. 417. Hugh Honour, The Image of the Black in Western Art IV, 2 (Cambridge, MA, 1976-1989), pp. 100-02, fig. 72. Jeannine Durand-Revillon, "Un promoteur de la sculpture polychrome sous le Second Empire, Charles-Henri-Joseph Cordier (1827-1905)," Soc. Hist. Art Francais (1982), p. 192. Hermann Pollig, et al, Exotische Welten, Europäsische Phantasien (Stuttgart, 1987), pp. 357, 491, no. 3.62. Antoinette Le Normand-Romain, et al, La Sculpture ethnographique, de la Vénus hottentote à la Tehura de Gauguin (Paris, 1994), p. 55, no. 33. Elyse Nelson and Wendy S. Walters, eds., Fictions of Emancipation: Carpeaux's Why Born Enslaved! Reconsidered, exh. cat. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2022), 50, 53, pl. 30, 67-9, 94.

Quick Overview

Artist: Charles Henri Joseph Cordier (French, 1827–1905) / Cast by Eck et Durand Fondeur (French, 19th century)
Date: 1851
Medium: Bronze
Dimensions: 71.5 × 40.6 × 29.2 cm (28 3/16 × 16 × 11 1/2 in.)
Type: Sculpture
Classification: sculpture
Style: 19th century
Place: France
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Credit line: Ada Turnbull Hertle Fund
Accession no.: 1963.840

More by Charles-Henri-Joseph Cordier in museum collections

Bust of Saïd Abdullah of the Darfour People
Charles-Henri-Joseph Cordier
1848 · Sculpture
Public collection via the Art Institute of ChicagoAT-00001830

Data retrieved from the Art Institute of Chicago on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.