Emmanuel Frémiet
| Emmanuel Frémiet | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born |
6 December 1824 Paris, France |
| Died |
10 September 1910 (aged 85) Paris, France |
| Nationality |
 France |
| Known for | Sculpture |
| Movement | Animalier |
Emmanuel Frémiet (6 December 1824 – 10 September 1910) was a French sculptor. He is famous for his sculpture of Joan of Arc in Paris (and its "sister" statues in Philadelphia and Portland, Oregon) and the monument to Ferdinand de Lesseps in Suez. The noted sculptor Pierre-Nicolas Tourgueneff was one of many students who learned sculpture under the tutelage of Frémiet.[1][2]
Early life
Born in Paris, he was a nephew and pupil of Sophie Frémiet, and later he became a pupil of her husband François Rude.[3] He chiefly devoted himself to animal sculpture. His earliest work was in scientific lithography (osteology), and for a while he served in times of adversity in the gruesome office of painter to the morgue. In 1843 he sent to the Salon a study of a Gazelle, and after that date worked prolifically. His "Wounded Bear" and "Wounded Dog" were produced in 1850, and the Luxembourg Museum at once secured this striking example of his work.
Career
In the 1850s, Frémiet produced various Napoleonic works. He first exhibited in the Paris Salon at the age of nineteen with a sculpture of an Algerian gazelle.[4] In 1853, Frémiet, "the leading sculptor of animals in his day" exhibited bronze sculptures of Emperor Napoleon III's basset hounds at the Paris Salon. Soon afterwards, from 1855 to 1859 Frémiet was engaged on a series of military statuettes for Napoleon III, none of which have survived.[5]
He produced his equestrian statue of Napoleon I in 1868, and of Louis d'Orleans of 1869 (at the Château de Pierrefonds) and in 1874 the first equestrian statue of Joan of Arc, erected in the Place des Pyramides, Paris; this he afterwards (1889) replaced with another version. During this period he also executed "Pan and the bear cubs", also acquired by the Luxembourg Museum and now in the Musée d'Orsay.
In the meanwhile he had exhibited his "Gorilla Carrying off a Woman" which won him a medal of honour at the Salon of 1887. Although praised in its time, this work now evokes ridicule from some observers for its depiction of a gorilla abducting a nude woman, presumably with the intention of raping her. Accordingly, this act has caught the public's imagination, as witnessed by the repeated popularity of the King Kong theme.
Of the same character is his "Ourang-Outangs" and "Borneo Savage" of 1895, a commission from the Paris Museum of Natural History. Frémiet also executed the statue of St Michael for the summit of the spire of the Eglise St Michel, and the equestrian statue of Velasquez for the Jardin de l'Infante at the Louvre. Named an Officer of the French Legion of Honor in 1878, he became a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1892, and succeeded Antoine-Louis Barye as professor of animal drawing at the Natural History Museum of Paris.
Death and legacy
Emmanuel Frémiet died on 10 September 1910 in Paris and was buried in the Cimetière de Louveciennes. Frémiet was one of finest animalier sculptors of all time.
Sculpture gallery
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Gorille enlevant une Femme
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Frémiet's Pan and the Bear Cubs
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Jeune éléphant pris au piège outside the Musée d'Orsay, Paris
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Le Dénicheur d'oursons, Jardin des Plantes, Paris
References
- ↑ Kjellberg, Pierre (1994). Bronzes of the 19th Century. Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publishing, Ltd. p. 627. ISBN 0-88740-629-7.
- ↑ "L'Atelier Pierre Turgenev". Tourgueneff.free.fr. Retrieved 10 October 2015.
- ↑ Emmanuel Frémiet in the RKD
- ↑ Mackay, James, The Animaliers, E.B. Button and Co., Inc., 1973
- ↑ Fusco, Peter and H. W. Janson, editors, The Romantics to Rodin, Los Angeles County Museum of Art 1980 p. 272
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
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External links
- Emmanuel Fremiet at Insecula (it may be necessary to close an advertising banner to view the page)
- Emmanuel Frémiet in American public collections on the French Sculpture Census website
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