Bull
Emmanuel Fremiet (Produced by Émile Muller et Cie. (Ivry-sur-Seine, France, 1854–1908))
c. 1896
- Medium
- Glazed stoneware
- Classification
- Ceramics
- Dimensions
- 55 × 59 × 30 cm (21 11/16 × 23 1/4 × 11 13/16 in.)
- Culture
- France
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- Purchased with funds provided by Constance T. and Donald W. Patterson through the Old Masters Society
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
This bull and its pelican companion are in fact chimeras: imaginative beasts composed of disparate body parts from two or more animals. French sculptor Emmanuel Fremiet merged the contemporary fascination with medieval imagery—particularly gargoyles—with his lifelong zoological studies. The gothic influence shows in each creature’s set of batlike wings, while the pelican’s mismatched but eerily realistic frog body displays Fremiet’s naturalist bent.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
