"Pourquoi naître esclave?" (Eng. "Why be born a slave?") is the name that the sculptor and painter Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1827-1875) gave to a series of busts he created around 1870. At the height of his career under the protection of Napoleon III, Carpeaux was commissioned by the city of Paris to design the Fontaine de l'Observatoire, slightly modifying the theme imposed on him - the four cardinal points - by replacing them with allegorical figures personifying Europe, Africa, Asia and America. While working on the depiction of Africa, he came up with the idea of the bust of Négresse Captive (Eng: "The Negress"). Obsessed with faithful representations of human movement, he depicted his slave bust in a way that expressed revolt. It is said that the woman who posed for the bust could also have been the model of Charles Cordier's "Capresse des colonies" of 1861.