Bust-Length Study of a Man

The painting Bust-Length Study of a Man by Francois-Auguste Biard is discussed. Despite the nuanced depiction of the man's head and face, this painting was intended not as a portrait but as a study of a model. Biard focused on the sitter's features and expression, producing a compelling likeness. Its immediacy is enhanced through the minute rendering of the window mullions reflected in his proper right eye. Unfortunately, they do not know the name of the sitter, who posed in the artist's studio in Paris in 1848, the year that slavery was abolished in France's overseas colonies and Biard received a commission to commemorate the event. This study likely relates to that canvas, which today is in the Chateau de Versailles. Biard first treated the theme of enslavement in 1835 and continued to do so in the 1860s, part of a broad repertoire of paintings that encompassed scenes of contemporary life in France as well as subjects drawn from his travels to Brazil, Canada, the US, Scandinavia, and throughout the Mediterranean.