Investigating the History of Sèvres’s Les Noirs Libres

by Rachel Hunter Himes

My dissertation in the Department of Art History and Archeology at Columbia University explores the production and reproduction of racial meaning and racialized identities in French decorative art during the 18th and 19th centuries, focusing on decorative black figures across object types and mediums. With the support of a Decorative Arts Trust Research Grant, I traveled to France to visit the archives and collections that are essential to a chapter that engages revolutionary abolitionism through a group of biscuit porcelain sculptures designed by Louis-Simon Boizot and produced by Sèvres from 1794 onwards. My research focuses on the group known in kiln records as Les noirs libres (figure 1) addresses this work alongside its previously unconsidered pendant—a partner sculpture that allows Les noirs libres to be displayed as part of a pair. My dissertation discusses how these miniature sculptures drew on qualities particular to the biscuit medium to suggest a fragile and circumscribed citizenship—one limited by race and notions of racialized gender—for the emancipated while seeming to celebrate the conferral of freedom.

Consulting records relating to both Les noirs libres and its pendant in the Sèvres Archives has deepened my understanding of the production of these works. I examined kiln and sale records (figure 2) to determine how many were produced and when, compared to the manufactory’s other revolutionary and non-political models. I was even able to identify some of the clients who purchased these and other abolitionist works. The discovery that both Les noirs libre and its pendant accompanied other, non-political sculptures in the two surtouts (sets of table decorations composed of porcelain sculptures and vases) purchased from Sèvres by the French Executive Directory will be of great importance as I continue to consider where, how, and by whom these works were seen. Studying archival records also brought to my attention other biscuit models representing black figures, which are rare in the Sèvres oeuvre. These stand as possible precedents and comparatives for the abolitionist sculptures of the 1790s. Thanks to the assistance of Delphine Valmalle, the librarian and archivist responsible for the Sèvres documentary collections, I was also able to visit the collection of plaster models in the Sèvres archive. There, I studied and documented the models for Les noirs libre, its pendant, the other abolitionist works produced by the manufactory, and the other works representing black figures, such as Boizot’s L’Afrique (1791, figure 3). Many of these, such as an unpublished model for a bas-relief counterpart to Boizot’s La Nature, I had not been able to examine elsewhere.

This trip also took me to the Musée du Nouveau Monde in La Rochelle, the home to one of the two surviving Les noirs libres groups and its pendant counterpart (figure 4). Seeing these works together for the first time offered a vital chance to examine their formal and conceptual correspondences and divergences. Thanks to the gracious assistance of curator Aline Carpentier-Le Corre, I was also able to consult the museum’s object files, which point my research in promising new directions.

I also was able to conduct some of the research necessary for the second and third chapters of my dissertation. The Musée du Nouveau Monde holds several of the so-called pendules au nègre, or clocks featuring decorative black figures that are the focus of another dissertation chapter. The object files for these works hold an invaluable collection of auction records, permitting me to locate numerous examples of the models I am studying and to begin to identify their makers. Also, in the Musée du Nouveau Monde and the Musée des Arts Decoratif in Paris, I was able to study examples of the printed wallpapers by Dufour et Cie that I will address in my dissertation.

I am deeply grateful to the Decorative Arts Trust for making such a productive trip possible. I look forward to sharing my work as it continues to develop.

Rachel Hunter Himes is a PhD candidate in the Department of Art History and Archeology at Columbia University.