Emmanuel Fremiet was born in Paris in 1824 and was a highly respected sculptor of animals and monuments, executing numerous public commissions. His early career was spent studying under his uncle, the master Francois Rude. Emmanuel’s grandfather had been a collector of sculpture and had purchased many pieces by Rude, who met and fell in love with his daughter Sophie, Emmanuel Fremiet’s aunt. In the tradition of the great animal sculptors, Emmanuel studied the anatomy of his subjects in the morgue and live subjects at the Jardin des Plantes, where he was later to succeed Barye as master of drawing.
Emmanuel Fremiet was born in Paris in 1824 and was a highly respected sculptor of animals and monuments, executing numerous public commissions. His early career was spent studying under his uncle, the master Francois Rude. Emmanuel’s grandfather had been a collector of sculpture and had purchased many pieces by Rude, who met and fell in love with his daughter Sophie, Emmanuel Fremiet’s aunt. In the tradition of the great animal sculptors, Emmanuel studied the anatomy of his subjects in the morgue and live subjects at the Jardin des Plantes, where he was later to succeed Barye as master of drawing.
His debut exhibit at the Salon in 1843 was a plaster model of a gazelle and over the next few years, he submitted a wide variety of cats, dogs, horses and cattle, winning a medal in 1849 for one of his animal groups. In 1851 he won a commission from Napoleon III to produce over fifty-five models of soldiers in the costumes of the French armies and a pair of large hounds for Compiegne. In the early 1850’s Fremiet started to model more exotic animal groups and more complicated compositions winning another medal at the Exposition Universelle of 1855 but being rejected for his Gorilla Carrying Off A Woman at the Paris Salon of 1859, which later proved to be so popular.
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