Irénée Richard: Large Bronze Panther

Irénée Félix René ROCHARD is a French sculptor born in 1906 in Villefranche sur Saône and died in Paris in 1984.
He was born into a family of artists and very quickly, he turned to animal sculpture, and, at the age of 20, in 1926, he won his first medal, barely out of the School of Decorative Arts, for a first work, a panther; during his career he would win many other medals, at the Salon des Artistes Français.
He would frequent the sculptor Pompon in the interwar period, who would advise him to simplify his achievements which would number in the hundreds, inspired by the Jardin des Plantes, where he would go frequently
Modern in style, his animals treated with precision, are characterized by flexibility and elegance.
The model offered for sale is exhibited at the 1945 Salon, at the height of the artist's maturity, and it is mounted on a black marble base whose dimensions are: 57 cm long by 34 cm high