DELABRIERRE, Paul Edouard

French sculptor, an important member of the Animalier school in late 19th-century Paris. He studied art under the painter Jean-Baptiste Delestre (1800-1871) but found his true calling was with the rendering of three-dimensional sculpture. He was greatly influenced by the combat works of the great master Antoine-Louis Barye and many of Delabrierre’s combat models show this violence of nature, which was very popular at that time. Many of the sculptures he executed often incorporated figures as well as animals.

Delabrierre first exhibited at the Salon of 1848 and continued submitting works regularly until 1882. His popular, realistic, subjects are very well detailed and finished. The façade of the Louvre incorporated one of his largest groups, L’Equitation, in 1857. In the last two years of his exhibiting career Delabrierre experimented with cast iron as a worthy sculpture material for the Salon.