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One of the most prolific and successful sculptors of the animalier school, Pierre Jules Mêne was born in Paris in 1810, the son of Dominique Mêne, a metal turner. He was raised on the rue du Fauborg-Saint-Antoine, the hub of Parisian craftsmanship in a district filled with skilled workers and artisans. Mêne was taught the rudiments of sculpture and founding by his father, and began his career creating models for commercial porcelain outlets. During the same period, he developed his natural talent as an animal sculptor under Rene Compaire, and frequently spent his spare hours studying the anatomy of the animals at the Zoo in the Jardin des Plantes. He interpreted his sketches and maquettes into bronze cast by his own hand, and rapidly established a reputation for himself. He first exhibited at the Salon in 1838, the same year in which he established his own foundry, and thereafter he exhibited one or more models almost every year until his death in 1871, with entries accepted posthumously on his behalf until 1879. One of his most successful sculptures entitled “L'Accolade” was first exhibited in wax at the Salon in 1852, in bronze at the Salon in 1853 and then at the Exposition Universelle of 1855.
Mêne specialized in small bronzes that were popular with the bourgeois class and many editions of each sculpture were made and sold to decorate their private home. Mêne took great care in his castings and often edited the pieces himself. As he became more successful, he issued catalogues of his work. He was helped in this endeavour with the assistance of his son-in-law Auguste Cain, a successful bronze artist in his own right.
Mêne’s early work was influenced by the spirited, lifelike compositions of the French painter Carle Vernet, and by the highly expressive romanticism of the English painter Landseer. However, over the course of his career he developed his own style of naturalism, which eventually placed him among the most important and influential realists of his time. Although Barye may be considered the initiator of the animalier school, it is Mêne who surpassed all others in the portrayal of animals in the realist form. He sculpted directly from nature, and his subjects, unposed and very much alive, are captured in a fleeting moment, picturesque in every detail. Mêne’s animals are often individual portraits with ‘humanised’ personalities- in many cases one knows their actual names. Today Mêne is one of the names most associated with, and typical of, the animalier school as a whole. In his lifetime, Mêne was awarded four medals at the Salon and at major exhibitions, including two first class medals at the London Exhibitions of 1855 and 1861, and the Cross of the Legion d’Honneur in 1861. He is often considered to be the lost wax casting expert of his time.