BY CHARLES-HENRI-JOSEPH CORDIER, CIRCA 1860

In 1848, whilst still training in the studio of François Rude, Charles Cordier attracted much attention when he exhibited a bust of a negro entitled Said Abdallah de la tribu du Darfour at the Salon. His choice of subject was based on a combination of childhood fantasies of voyages to far-away places and the socio-political, cultural and artistic climate of the time. France, having recently conquered Algeria, had launched herself into a period of colonisation. Orientalism and a preoccupation with the exoticism of distant continents was not something which Cordier himself had pioneered. It was artists such as Delacroix who had for twenty years already found inspiration in the intense, vibrant colours, the rich majestic clothes and the curious mystical lifestyle of the indigenous peoples of North Africa and Asia. It was Cordier, however, who gave three-dimensional life to this trend through his sculptures. In 1851, at the Great Exhibition in London, Cordier exhibited alongside Said Abdallah its female pendant, which became known as the Vénus Africaine. The pair were bought by Queen Victoria, who in doing so confirmed that interest in this type of subject matter was not exclusively French. In 1853, Constant Dumeril, the uncle of Cordier's wife, Felicie, became director of the Museum d'histoire naturelle, Paris, where an ethnographic gallery had been established in 1850. As a result, Cordier was commissioned to execute a number of works which both stimulated his own interest and corroborated current scientific theories concerning race. It was at this stage that Cordier, fascinated by the juxtaposition of different materials and colours, began to experiment with galvanoplastie, a process of silver-plating which had been carried out at the Paris silversmiths Christofle since 1842. His own earliest attempts at this technique took the form of a pair of busts entitled Epoux Chinois, exhibited at the Salon of 1853. Once completed, the bronzes were sent to Cordier's brother-in-law, Devers, who applied the enamel highlights. The only moderate success that this new use of polychromy brought him failed to persuade Cordier to return to what he perceived as the monotony of the monochrome sculpture of the Romantic movement which preceded him. Through his frequent excursions to the Louvre, he became acquainted with the ways in which polychrome sculpture was employed in antiquity, such as in the so-called Dying Seneca with his black marble skin intersected by a wide yellow onyx belt and with piercing eyes of amethyst and cream enamel. In 1856, Cordier, funded by the Ecole des Beaux Arts, set off for Algeria, fulfilling one of his childhood ambitions. In Antiquity, quarries of marble and onyx in the region of Oran had been exploited for their vast array of translucent coloured stones. That exploitation started afresh in the 19th century and Cordier, whose own vision of Algeria was coloured in similarly vivid tones, was eager to capitalise upon it. This was facilitated by his friendship with a marble mason named Drouet who was able to procure for Cordier the multicoloured marbles and onyx which corresponded to the image that he brought back with him from North Africa. This image was presented to the critics and public at the Salon in 1857, where Cordier exhibited no less than ten busts each in various combinations of marble, onyx, bronze and enamel. Despite the general reaction being one of indifference, the majority of the models exhibited were purchased by the Beaux-Arts and replicas can now be seen in the Anthropology Gallery in the Musée de l'Homme, Paris. The following year, Cordier embarked on a further voyage, this time to Greece. On the small islands of Paros and Naxos he discovered the beautiful marbles used by the ancient Greek sculptors. His intention was clear : 'J'employais les marbres de Paros, les onyx taillés pour draperie, les émaux sur cuivre, l'argent, l'or comme les Grecs et au Moyen Age.' He sent large quantities of samples back to Paris, which on his return he fashioned, at enormous expense to himself, into no less than fifty sculptures representing races from Africa, Asia and Europe, exhibited in a gallery given over entirely to his work at the Palais des Expositions. Many critics remained steadfastly hostile to this polychrome sculpture, considering it to be alien to true art and an enemy of the monochromatic contemporary academic sculpture which sought to recreate the statuary of the antique. Others, such as Théophile Gautier, countered this opinion with enthusiasm: 'M. Cordier qui est un coloriste, s'est fait une riche palette de marbre, de metaux et de pierres qu'il associe le plus souvent avec un rare bonheur. Il a osé être original dans un art qui supporte peu l'originalité. Il merite l'attention de la critique et l'intérêt des amateurs.' It is this later evaluation of Cordier's oeuvre which prevails nearly a century and a half later. In combining his themes, inspired by the progress of science, with the sensitive, masterful handling of his chosen materials, Cordier achieved a highly decorative, exotic art form whose contribution to the Orientalist movement of the nineteenth century ranks high among its many exponents.