French Solid Bronze Hunter and Dog on Marble Base signed Mene. Very Good Condition. 4x7x7. Pierre Jules Mene (1810-1879) was a French Sculptor and animaliere. He is considered the pioneer of animal sculpture in the nineteenth-century. PROVENANCE: A Charleston South Carolina Private Estate. Mene produced a number of animal sculptures, mainly of domestic animals including horses, cows and bulls, sheep and goats which were in vogue during the Second Empire. He was one of a school of French animalieres which also included Rosa Bonheur, Pierre Louis Rouillard, Antoine-Louis Barye, his son-in-law Auguste Cain, and François Pompon. He went on to open his own bronze foundry in 1838 to cast his own work. His work was first shown in London by Ernest Gambart in 1849. Mene specialized in small bronze figures which explains why none of his works exist as public statuary. His work was a popular success with the bourgeois class and many editions of each sculpture were made, often to decorate an increasing number of private homes of the period. The quality of these works is high, comparable to Barye's. Mene also seems to have enjoyed a longer period of success and celebrity than his contemporaries. He is considered to have been the lost-wax casting expert of his time, later surpassed only by Auguste Rodin. Weight 3 pds 11 oz