Emmanuel Fremiet (1824-1910)
Emmanuel Fremiet (1824-1910) was one of the most important sculptors of the 19th century. He trained in a specialist school of art and then perfected his skills in the studio of his uncle, François Rude. His official career took off following his election to the Académie des Beaux-Arts, after which he received many commissions and boasted numerous successes.
A secretive and reserved artist, Fremiet kept his distance from the artistic controversies and radical positions of the time. He attended the salons of the 1840s, and although still young, caught the attention of a number of far-sighted critics, in particular Baudelaire. Early on in his career, he chose a path that would prove challenging given the already established success of the animalier Antoine-Louis Barye: the sculpture of animals. He did not, however, compare himself with Barye, as his interest in animals took a somewhat different angle: rather than wild animals he preferred to study domestic animals within the human environment and observed them in their familiar and picturesque surroundings, such as at work, in the streets or at the circus. Fremiet possessed a knowledge of domestic animals that was unequalled by any other sculptor of his time. For example, he far outclassed all his contemporaries in the study of horses: the equestrian monuments he executed show such an impeccable science of both the animal and of the rider, that they remain the most remarkable examples of equestrian sculpture of the 19th century.
