Jeanne d'Arc

Context view of the statue in the Rue de Rivoli, at its intersection with the Rue des Pyramides; Place des Pyramides is a public square in the 1st arrondissement located at the western end of the Tuileries Garden. Fremiet's Joan of Arc (bronze, 1874), despite criticisms of the disproportion of horse to rider, almost immediately assumed symbolic status as an emblem of France resurgent after defeat in the Franco-Prussian War (1870). His extreme sensitivity on the subject of proportion led him to modify the statue in 1899 to conform with a second version he had done for Nancy (bronze, 1889-1890). In its final form, and gilded, the Joan of Arc in the Place des Pyramides shares a Symbolist preciosity of style with two other major works by Fremiet from the 1890s, St George Defeating the Dragon (bronze, 1891; Barentin, Mus. Mun.) and St Michael (bronze, 1896; Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey; replica, Paris, Mus. d’Orsay). Source: Grove Art Online; http://www.oxfordartonline.com/ (accessed 4/18/2011