Mascarons of Paris: From the Colonies to the 16th Arr.

A pair of curious mascarons from different buildings in the 16th Arr. I suspect they represent some of France's former colonies. On the left, from a 1925 building, could be Indochina, which gained final independence from France in the 1950s. On the right could be Guyane (aka French Guiana), which was a colony but became a department of France in the 1940s after WWII (in France, a department is an administrative area like a county or state in the U.S.).

While these are the first I've noticed on mascarons, artistic representations of indigenous peoples would not have been uncommon during France's long colonial period. For example, the statues outside of the Musée d'Orsay feature women from the six continents in traditional attire (although probably mythical or imagined--Europe's lady looks more like a Valkyrie than anything else), commissioned for the 1878 l'Exposition Universelle.

More to the point, the Jardin d'Acclimatation in the Bois de Boulogne featured essentially a human zoo for a time in the 19th and early 20th centuries--with "exotic" people from around the world displayed for the public in "authentic" village enclosures wearing "native" attire. The Jardin d'Agronomie Tropicale in the Bois de Vincennes featured a similar exposition, but only for a single summer in 1907.

Henri Sicard and Farradesche Lithographers, circa 1877, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

It is worth noting that the zoo animals eaten by Parisiens during the Commune of 1870-1871 came from the Jardin d'Acclimation. I've read that the apes and monkeys were spared from the menu because they too closely resembled humans. I'm not sure I believe that. But if true, perhaps the French back then figured that the logic cut both ways.