Organized around a single object the marble bust Why Born Enslaved! (1868) by French sculptor Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux Fictions of Emancipation: Carpeaux Recast is the first exhibition at The Met to examine Western sculpture in relation to the histories of transatlantic slavery, colonialism, and empire. Created in the wake of American emancipation and some 20 years after the abolition of slavery in the French Atlantic, Why Born Enslaved! was shaped by the enduring popularity of antislavery .