Fictions of Emancipation

A critical reexamination of Carpeauxs bust Why Born Enslaved! and other nineteenth-century antislavery imagesthis book interrogates the treatment of the Black figure as a malleable political symbol and locus of exoticized beauty This critical reexamination of Jean-Baptiste Carpeauxs iconic bust Why Born Enslaved! unpacks the sculptures complex and sometimes contradictory engagement with an antislavery discourse. Noted art historians and writers discuss how categories of racial difference grew in popularity in the nineteenth century alongside a crescendo in cultural production in France during the Second Empire. By focusing on Why Born Enslaved! and comparing it to works by Carpeauxs contemporaries on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as to objects by twenty-first-century artists Kara Walker and Kehinde Wiley, this volume explores such key themes as the portrayal of Black enslavement and emancipation; the commodification of images of Black figures; the role of sculpture in generating the sympathies of its audiences; and the relevance of Carpeauxs sculpture to legacies of empire. The book also provides a chronology of events central to the histories of transatlantic slavery, abolition, colonialism, and empire. Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press Exhibition Schedule: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (March 10, 2022March 5, 2023)