Antoine-Louis Barye. Antoine-Louis Barye was a Romantic French sculptor most famous for his work as an animalier, a sculptor of animals.
His son and student was the known sculptor Alfred Barye. Born in Paris, France, Barye began his career as a goldsmith, like many sculptors of the Romantic Period.He first worked under his father Pierre, and around 1810 worked under the sculptor Guillaume-Mertin Biennais, who was a goldsmith to Napoleon.
After studying under sculptor Francois-Joseph Bosio in 1816, and painter Baron Antoine-Jean Gros, he was in 1818 admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts. But it was not until 1823, while working for the goldsmith Emile Fauconnier that he discovered his true predilection from watching the animals 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 1819 while he was studying at the École des Beaux-Arts, Barye sculpted a medallion named Milo of Crotana Devoured by a Lion, in which the lion bites into Milo's left thigh. Milo's theme was the school's official theme for the medallion competition of 1819, where Barye earned an honorable mention.
c. 1820 Barye sculpted Hercules with the Erymanthean Boar, depicting Hercules's fourth Labor, where he had to capture a live wild boar from Mount Erymanthos. Barye was no less successful in sculpture on a small sc