Lovely Seated Bronze Cat Statue by Emmanuel Frémiet as French Sculptor French, born in 1824.
Highlighted by a brown patina the sculpture is charming, capturing perfectly the attitude of the little feline.
Frémiet was born in Paris, he was the nephew and pupil of Sophie Frémiet, and later he became a pupil of her husband François Rude.
He is more known for his 1874 Statue if Joan Of Arc in Paris, of which two copies are found in Philadelphia and in Portland, but was very prolific in the animal sculpture genre.
He exhibited for the first time at the Salon in 1843 at the very young age of 19 with a Gazelle statue and was highly praised for the beauty of his work.
By the mid 1850 he was considered as part of the Animaliers Sculptor Movement of which Antoine louis Barye was considered the ‘Father’ or Leader.
The name of animalier which had at first been given to Barye in 1831 as a derisive badge had by then become a proud affiliation.
Emmanuel Frémiet went on to produce several statues for Napoleon III.
During this period he executed “Pan and the bear cubs”, also acquired by the Luxembourg Museum and now in the Musée d’Orsay.
He became a member of the Académie Francaise in 1892 and an honorary member of the Royal Academy in 1904.
Our little statue is signed on the terrace.