A Very Fine French Gilt Bronze of "Jeanne d'Arc à Cheval", early 20th c., after Emmanuel Fremiet (French, 1824-1910), original maquette of 1872-3, cast signature, dedicatory plaque at base, numbered "623" at base, height 28 1/2 in., width 13 1/2 in., depth 7 in. Note: In the wake of a papal appeal from the Bishops of Orléans, Frémiet conceived an over-life-size equestrian monument of Joan of Arc as an inspiring image of French heroism, patriotism, and national pride. He prepared a preliminary maquette between 1872 and 1873, now in the Musée d'Orsay. A site was selected in April 1873 in the Place des Pyramides where it was believed Joan had been wounded during her ill-fated attempt to drive the Burgundian-British faction from the Château du Louvre. Frémiet's monument was inaugurated on 20 February 1874, but was immediately engulfed in storms of protest from Republicans, suspecting its Royalist overtones. While Parisians soon came to love the evocative naturalism of Frémiet's splendid design, t he sculptor himself resolved to remodel and to replace it. He unveiled a second design in the Salon of 1889 which simplified the horse, while adding 9 inches to the rider's height. The revised conception was accepted and installed at Nancy (1890), as well as cast for Philadelphia (1890); a clandestine cast was made, and secretly held in readiness. In 1899 the construction of the Métro provided a pretext for removal of the original monument to the foundry, where it was melted down. On 16 May 1899 Frémiet's second version was reinstalled under the "camouflage" of new gilding. This version proved popular: it was cast at full size for Mirecourt, Lille, Castres, and St-étienne in France, as well as for Melbourne (1906), Portland, Oregon (1924) and New Orleans (1958). References: Ted Gott, "An Iron Maiden for Melbourne: the History and Context of Emmanuel Frémiet's... Jeanne d'Arc," The La Trobe Journal, Fall 2008 Ruth Mirolli Butler, 19th C. French Sculpture: Monuments for the Middle Class (Louisville, 1971), pp. 175-7; Albert Boime, Hollow Icons: The Politics of Sculpture in 19th-C. France (Kent State, 1987), pp. 88-94; and Philip Ward-Jackson, "Frémiet, Emmanuel", Dictionary of Art (Grove, London, 1996), vol. 11, pp. 753-4.