Pierre-Jules Mêne (French, 1810-1879)

Pierre-Jules Mêne is perhaps the most famous animalier sculptor after Barye, and his hunting groups are consistently the best among the genre. The original of the present model was exhibited at the Salon of 1873 in wax and in 1874 in bronze. An immensely popular and impressive group, casts are in museums at Morlaix, Toulon and the Château de Compiène. In 1838 Mêne established his own foundry to cast his work in bronze and the detail and fine quality of the ciseleur to the present lot indicate that it was in every likelihood edited either by Mêne himself or his son-in-law, the sculptor Auguste Nicolas Cain (d. 1894), rather than posthumously by the fondeur Susse Frères.