Vintage Large Horse & Jockey Bronze Sculpture Mene' 20th Century

Lost Wax Method
sometimes called by the French name of cire perdue or the Latin, cera perduta is the process by which a bronze or brass is cast from an artists sculpture.

In industrial uses, the modern process is called investment casting. An ancient practice, the process today varies from foundry to foundry, but the steps which are usually used in casting small bronze sculptures in a modern bronze foundry are generally quite standardised.
 

Pierre Jules Mene'
(1810 -1879) was a French Sculptor and animalier. He is considered to be the pioneer of animal sculpture in the nineteenth-century.

He produced a number of animal sculptures, mainly of domestic animals like horses, cows and bulls, sheep, goats, etc., which were in vogue during the Second Empire. He was one of a "school of French animalieres" which also included Pierre Louis Rouillard, Antoine-Louis Barye, and Francois Pompon. Mene' himself 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 the increasingly 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.