Narrator: French artist Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux made this bronze sculpture of a man around 1872. He used an unidentified model from the small Chinese community then living in Paris. Curator Jeffrey Fraiman:

Fraiman: Part of what makes the figure feel so present, so immediate, is the sensitivity with which Carpeaux portrayed his features.

Narrator: Jade Ichimura works in the Museums’ education department as an interpretation and outreach associate.

Ichimura: As somebody who is Japanese American, seeing another person who also has similar features, in this museum, was an immediate point for me. When you see a bust in a museum of a non-European person from the 1800s, you'd usually expect that they would be shown in some very blatantly exoticizing way, but he doesn't really appear that way to me. However, when you learn more about the bronze, those narratives do come up, unfortunately. 

Narrator: Carpeaux included the braid, or queue, that at this time was mandatory for all men in China.

Ichimura: By the 19th and 20th  centuries, the queue became a feature that people recognized as Chinese, and became almost a caricature for some people.

Narrator: - and the sculpture’s title, “The Chinese Man”, seems to deny its sense of the man’s individuality. The artist sold multiple copies of this piece.

Fraiman: The success of these compositions testified to the interest in 19th century Europe for images of the “other”.

Carpeaux modeled this figure for a larger project, a fountain he was commissioned to make, showing the four parts of the world – this figure representing “Asia”.

Narrator: But the fountain figures were planned as women. So, having created this head using his male model, Carpeaux then attached it to a woman’s body, for the fountain’s full-length figure.