Sherry

I don’t see any paint on these, and those which are described as cold painted bronzes which I’ve looked at show definite signs of having had paint in various colors added as highlights or to enhance certain features.

The models for this pair of cold-painted bronzes were well known when the Paris cakewalk craze was in full bloom in 1903, and for several years afterward. Here is the first paragraph from their profile at the Oxford African American Studies Center:

Walker, Ruth “Rudy” and Frederick “Fredy” Walker (31 Aug. 1891–after 1928) and (9 Nov. 1893–May 1977), known as The Walkers, song and dance entertainers and actors, were both born in Chicago. It appears that at some time in 1902 the two juvenile dancers, brother and sister, traveled to Europe in the company of their mother, Ella Walker, herself an artist, born in Chicago in 1960 or 1964, according to her own conflicting statements. That they traveled with their own mother is mentioned in June 1903 and again in the winter 1904/1904 in Vienna, December 1906 in Stockholm, in November 1907 in Berlin, and again in February 1908 in Copenhagen. Billed as “Les Enfants Nègres,” their presentations of the cakewalk dance attracted a lot of attention at the Nouveau Cirque at Paris and paved the way for a long career in Europe. They became so popular that they inspired a composer, a sculptor, and a movie film director, as well as cartoonists. Their portraits appear on many postcards; in fact, they might well be the most often photographed black entertainers of the period. The cards show them in various dance poses—sometimes together and sometimes solo. Mostly they wear tall, calf-length socks and white dance shoes. The boy wore a white dance costume or gymnast’s suit with a black sash, whereas the girl wore a short skirt.

To reach this page without an account you have to open a cache, rather than go directly to the present page. Do a google search on “Oxford Fredy.” Because of the unusual spelling of the boy’s familiar name, the page you want will be the first Google result. I didn’t give you the URL because it’s very long.

See also the two features on Rudy and Fredy Walker at my site Songbook1.wordpress.com:

1. Rudy and Fredy Walker, c.1903: cake walking babies from home (http://songbook1.wordpress.com/pp/fx/0-new-features/cake-walking-babies-from-home/) — published 1 March 2012

2. Cakewalk dancers Rudy and Fredy Walker: sculptures by Carl Kauba (http://songbook1.wordpress.com/pp/fx/0-new-features/cakewalk-dancers-rudy-and-fredy-walker-sculptures-by-carl-kauba/)