'Le Chinois' ('The Chinese Man')

Le Chinois, coupled with Carpeaux’s iconic Pourquoi naître esclave? and other representations of the Continents, formed the artist’s monumental group Quatre Parties du Monde, commissioned by the city of Paris in 1867 for Davioud's Fontaine de l'Observatoire. This fine bronze, a rare cast from Susse’s earliest editions of Carpeaux’s work, shaped Carpeaux’s small but powerful group of ethnographic portraiture – a discipline championed by his contemporary Charles Cordier (d. 1905). Le Chinois, here as an esquisse or ‘sketch’, is the first of two versions on the subject produced by the artist, conceived in 1868. The second variant was created in 1872 and exhibited at the Salon that same year. The model reappeared in Brussels thereafter and was ultimately acquired by Susse from the Carpeaux family and edited through the early 20th century.