Charles-Henri-Joseph Cordier

Overall the condition of the marble is very good. There is dirt and some minor wear to the surface consistent with age. There are some small, faint pencil marks and green crayon marks in the crevice of the cleavage. There are a few minor naturally occuring inclusions, including one tothe top of the back. The original tinting in the hair, eyes and scarf is faded. There is a reattached original section at the back left to the scarf. The socle may not be original and hte bust has been reattached to it and there is plaster fill at the join. The earrings may be replaced.
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La Mauresque d'Alger Chantant was one of thirteen portraits which Cordier, ethnographic sculptor to the Musée d'Histoire Naturelle, produced during his mission to Algeria from April to October in 1856. On 5th April 1856, Cordier was granted a fund of 1000 francs to visit Algeria with an official brief to 'study the various types of indigenous peoples from the standpoint of art'. The sculptor took up his sojourn with enthusiasm and was determined to experience the culture as closely as possible. He insisted on living amongst Algerians, rather than fellow French expatriates, and appears to have been accepted within the community. As he wrote, 'I lived in a native quarter of the Casbah, I got on well with everyone, and as my door was always open, pretty soon I entertained quite a number of visitors'. It was here that he captured the likeness of his Mauresque d'Alger chantant.

The Mauresque d'Alger chantant was exhibited at the Palais de l'Industrie in 1860 alongside other portraits created during Cordier's Algerian sojourn. A descriptive catalogue of the exhibition was written by the critic Marc Trapadoux. Trapadoux was fascinated by the Mauresque chantant and wrote passionately of her vitality:

'...the transparent colour of her skin is white and rose, her perfumed hair black and shiny, her eyes, blue and limpid, shine with joy, her graceful face reflects an ingenious and vibrant soul. Her entire personality expresses pleasure and surrender. Her mouth half-open like a flower, lets escape a smooth sound, a sort of chirping which swells her neck, lifts her breast and throws back her head...'

The Mauresque d'Alger chantant was one of the most popular of Cordier's models and it was edited in bronze in various sizes. The life-size marble versions are much rarer. Only six are recorded in Laure de Margerie and Édouard Papet's 2004 catalogue raisonné. One version, with a shorter truncation and gilt highlights, is in the collection of the Musée de l'Homme in Paris. All the other marble versions are listed as 'present location unknown'. The present bust has traces of polychromy, particularly visible in the hair and in the stripes of the scarf. Two versions in the catalogue raisonné are described as polychromed and this bust can most probably be identified as cat. no. 362, because of its larger size. That version was exhibited in Paris in 1860 and again in London in 1861 at The Gallery, 121 Pall Mall, when it was sold to a Mr Taylor for 38 guineas.

In the present marble, Cordier beautifully captures the supple luminosity of skin and the shy hesitancy of his singer. Overall it is an exceptionally subtle and nuanced rendering of the subject and it exhibits a delicacy which may have been lost in other versions of the model, particularly in some of the bronzes produced to satisfy popular demand. The quality of the present bust would tend to substantiate the hypothesis that it may have been the version which Cordier chose to include in the Paris and London exhibitions, which documented his Algerian visit.

RELATED LITERATURE
M. Trapadoux, L'Oeuvre de M. Cordier, galerie anthropologique et ethnographique pour servir a l'histoire des races, Paris 1860, pp. 11 & 13-14, no.3; L. de Margerie & E. Papet, Facing the Other: Charles Cordier (1827-1905) Ethnographic Sculptor, exhib. cat., Musée d'Orsay, Paris, 2004, pp. 188-191, cat. no. 362