The elephant can be envisioned trekking slowly and majestically across the ceaseless dryness of a plain in search of a watering hole or the shade of tree. He pulls his trunk upward as he passes on by with a tender passivity to his eyes. For years the elephant has been known as a sacred animal in the East. As the largest animal to walk the Earth, the elephant is known as a symbol of strength and power. In Buddhist cultures, white elephants are symbolic of patience and wisdom. The Chinese see elephants as a symbol of energy, strength, and power. Ganesha is a Hindu deity with an elephant's head. The bronze sculpture was molded using the ancient method of lost-wax casting and stained with a brown patina finish for preservation. The elephant is mounted upon a variegated green marble base with the artist Barye's signature. Antoine-Louis Barye (September 24, 1796 – June 25, 1875) was a French sculptor most famous for his work as an animalier, a sculptor of animals. Born in Paris, Barye began his career as a goldsmith, like many sculptors of the Romantic Period. After studying under sculptor Francois-Joseph Bosio 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 Fauconnier, the goldsmith, 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 modelling them in sculpture on a large or small scale.

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