Charles-Henri-Joseph Cordier (1827-1905) is the most celebrated ethnographic sculptor of the 19th century. The French artistic interest in the exotic and oriental races was first explored by the painters and authors, but was translated into a sophisticated balance of the scientific and the poetic by Cordier. He was fascinated by ethnographic accuracy and the nobility and elegance of foreign races. He was commissioned by the Paris Museum of Natural History to produce busts for an ethnographic gallery. In this pursuit Cordier travelled extensively through the Mediterranean lands.
Cordier's first exhibit was his bust of Said Abdallah de la tribu du Darfour in 1848. Two years later, in 1851, he modelled a negress from the African coast, his celebrated Négresse des côtes d'Afrique ou Nubienne, christened by Théophile Gauthier Vénus africaine. The two formed a pair and were purchased by Queen Victoria on their inclusion in the 1851 Great Exhibition in London.
The present Vénus africaine is an interesting reduction of the original, but like the 1851 exhibits, it too shares in the rich mixture of bronze and silver patination. As one of the earliest promoters of polychromy, unusual patinas and silvering in the 19th century, Cordier was able to create a vivid image of the exotic, while simultaneously imbuing his subjects with a classical beauty, the very idealism which led Gaulthier to call the present model Vénus.