Charles-Arthur Bourgeois

CHARLES-ARTHUR BOURGEOIS (Dijon, 1838- Paris, 1886)
"Le Charmeur de Serpent".
Patinated bronze.
Signed by the author and foundry stamp (L. Marchand).
Marble base.
Measurements: 83 cm (height); 14 x 30 x 30 cm (base).

Emblematic work of the French sculptor Charles Arthur Bourgeois, "Le Charmeur de Serpent", also known as "Le Nubien Dansant" or "The Dancing Nubian", is one of the most refined examples of the artistic exoticism cultivated during the Second French Empire. Made in 1864, this bronze sculpture represents a young African in full ritual dance, performed with grace and dynamism, while playing a flute to dominate the attention of a snake coiled at his feet.

The figure, of great expressive force, is distinguished by the naturalistic detail with which Bourgeois resolves the youthful anatomy and body tension in movement. The character is adorned with movable earrings (one has been lost) and a feather headdress, elements that accentuate her ceremonial air and reinforce the fascination for the exotic, typical of nineteenth-century taste. She also carries a cane, a complement that contributes to the rhythm of the composition and the balance of the gesture.

The theme of the snake charmer, widespread in the painting and sculpture of the period, responded to the interest of European society for the Oriental and African, conceived as territories of mystery, sensuality and spectacle. In this sense, Bourgeois' work not only stands out for its technical mastery in patinated bronze, but also for embodying a colonial imaginary that fed the visual arts of the time.

Examples of this sculpture are preserved in public and private collections, one of the most famous being the one installed in the Ménagerie of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, where it is presented as an icon of the orientalist sculpture of the nineteenth century.

Charles-Arthur Bourgeois was a French sculptor, winner of the Prix de Rome in 1863. A student at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris. The same year he won the prize he presented the plaster cast of the snake charmer. The following year Napoleon III commissioned this life-size sculpture for the decoration of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Other smaller scale reproductions in bronze were marketed and one of them is preserved in the Dahesh Museum of Art in New York. He stayed as a boarder at the Villa Medici in Italy from 1864 to 1868. After his return to France he made the bronze of the Greek Actor, which is in the Luxembourg garden.

Charles-Arthur Bourgeois' best and best known works include the following: The Snake Charmer, 1863, bronze preserved in the Dahesh Museum at life size in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris.
The crocodile hunter, life-size bronze, in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Actor-Greek - Acteur grec, from 1868, bronze in the Luxembourg garden in Paris. Statue of Cardinal Matthieu, died in 1875, Cathedral of Saint-Jean and Saint-Etienne, Besançon in the apse on the left side looking from the nave.