User:Fuzheado/Why Born Enslaved!

Why Born Enslaved! or Why Born a Slave? (French: Pourquoi! Naitre esclave! or La Negresse) is a life-sized marble bust by the French sculptor Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux depicting a bound woman of African descent.

While the composition, modeled in 1868, debuted at the Paris Salon in 1869 and was reproduced in various media, the marble version was carved in 1873. Carpeaux added the inscription in French, "Pourquoi! Naître esclave!" (Why born a slave!). The work was a preparatory work for the commission he had for the Fontaine de l'Observatoire, a fountain in the Jardin Marco Polo, south of the Jardin du Luxembourg in the 6th arrondissement of Paris.

Carpeaux explored the theme of slavery in his artwork after abolition in France in 1848 and the end of the United States Civil War in 1865. A 1868 bronze version titled The Negress is in the permanent collection of the Indianapolis Museum of Art.