Bust of a Chinese (1867–68): Art, History and Details

Bust of a Chinese (1867–68) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (French, 1827–1875).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This bust is related to the allegorical figure of Asia in Carpeaux's monumental bronze fountain, The Four Parts of the World Upholding the Celestial Sphere, commissioned by Baron Haussmann in 1867 for the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. The figure was changed into a woman in the fountain and reflects the artist's interest in accurately portraying different ethnic groups. This bust exists in various sizes and media.

Object facts

• Title: Bust of a Chinese
• Date: 1867–68
• Creator attribution: Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (French, 1827–1875)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: plaster
• Dimensions: Overall: 35.5 x 25.8 x 14.2 cm (14 x 10 3/16 x 5 9/16 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Sculpture 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1972.49

A detail from the museum

Greatly admired during his time, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux received important commissions from French Emperor Napoleon III and Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1972.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 60, no. 3 (March 1973): 63–115.
• Hawley, Henry H. “Carpeaux’s Mysterious Sculpture.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 63, no. 4 (April 1976): 99–107.
• Abe, Stanley K. Imagining Sculpture: A Short Conjectural History. Munich : Hirmer Verlag, 2022.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.