Emmanuel Frémiet

EMMANUEL FRÉMIET (France,1824-1910).
"Joan of Arc".
Bronze.
Signed at the bottom.
Measurements: 72 x 35 x 10,5 cm.; 83 cm. height with pedestal.

Equestrian sculpture made by Emmanuel Frémiet, following the model that he himself established as a patriotic symbol of France, when in 1870 he was commissioned an effigy of Joan of Arc to be placed in the Place des Pyramides in Paris. The heroine rides a horse with a vehement expression and flies a flag fluttering in the wind. This bronze piece shows the quality of the materials and the technical precision resulting in a careful treatment of each element of the armor, of the noble equine anatomy and of the almost childlike but at the same time characterful features of the girl. The public sculpture (now somewhat modified) is located in a significant place, an area where, according to legend, Joan of Arc fell while trying to retake the city of Paris. The statue inspired other towns to commission replicas. Cities such as Philadelphia, New Orleans, Portland or Melbourne also chose to pay tribute to this symbol of French freedom and sovereignty.

Emmanuel Frémiet was a French sculptor. He was the nephew and disciple of the sculptor François Rude. He is also linked to the realist school. In 1853, Fremiet, "the greatest animal sculptor of his time" exhibited bronze sculptures of Napoleon III at the Paris Salon. Between 1855 and 1859, he was responsible for a series of military statuettes for the emperor. He executed his equestrian statue of Napoleon I in 1868 and of Louis of Orleans in 1869, at the Château de Pierrefonds, and in 1874 the first equestrian statue of Joan of Arc, erected in the Place des Pyramides in Paris, which was later replaced by another complete version in 1889. During this period he also executed Bread and the Puppies, also acquired by the Musée du Luxembourg and now in the Musée d'Orsay.