Paris-born Antoine-Louis Barye, like many sculptors of…

Paris-born Antoine-Louis Barye, like many sculptors of the Romantic Period, had begun his career as a goldsmith.

Examples of his larger work include the "Lion of the Column of July," of which the plaster model is cast in 1839.

After studying under sculptor Francois-Joseph Bosio and painter Baron Antoine-Jean Gros he had in 1818 been admitted to the École des Beaux Arts, but it was not until 1823, while working for Fauconnier, the goldsmith, that he had discovered his true predilection from watching the wild beasts in the Jardin des Plantes, making vigorous studies of them in pencil drawings comparable to those of Delacroix, then modeling them in sculpture on a large or small scale.

In 1831, he had exhibited his "Tiger devouring a Crocodile", and in by the following year had mastered a style of his own in the "Lion and Snake."

Henceforward Barye, though engaged in a perpetual struggle with want, will exhibit year after year these naturalist studies of animals—admirable groups which reveal him as inspired by a spirit of true romance and a feeling for the beauty of the antique.

Barye is no less successful in sculpture on a small scale, and excels in representing animals in their most familiar attitudes.