Charles Cordier was born in Cambrai and was apprenticed as a boy to a jeweller, which inspired the fine detailing and ornate use of multi patinas, enamel decoration and mixed medias for which he is so well known.
Cordier studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris and then with the prominent sculptor Francois Rude. He exhibited for the first time at the Paris Salon in 1847 and soon became fascinated by the nobility and elegance of the foreign races. This speciality combined perfectly with the French interest in their new colony Algeria and the fashionable “Beaux Ideal†of the Second Empire and gained him the commission from the Paris Museum of Natural History to produce busts for a special ethnographic gallery. He then travelled extensively, going to Algeria in 1856, Greece in 1858 and in 1866 Egypt, on an ethnographic mission sponsored by the French government.
La Mauresque Noire was part of Cordier's first great presentation of twelve portraits that form his presentation of a new type of ethnography. Exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1957, Cordier's aspiration was to surpass the common romantic orientalist attitude to non-european races. He was meticulous in noting down the specific ethnic background of each of his subjects and noted for this work 'type metis; pere maure, mere negresse.'
Provenance
Private Collection, France
Literature
Abrams. Facing the other, 1827-1905, Charles Cordier, Ethnographic sculptor. 2004; Mexico. p13-15
