Career
His early training contributed to the fineness and precision of his technique, but it was his own native genius that enabled him to grasp essential characteristics and to depict credible and convincing animals--real or imaginary--in telling and concentrated forms.
He worked on engraving, jewelry, and topographical maps before studying sculpture with FrançoisFrancois Bosio and painting with Baron Gros. Failing to win official recognition, Barye worked with the jeweler Fauconnier from 1823 to 1832, when he began to be successful as an independent sculptor, including among his patrons the Duc d'Orléansd'Orleans and Henry Walters, the American collector.
Barye is widely represented by work in European and American museums (especially in Paris, Washington, and Baltimore) and by architectural sculpture for the Louvre, Paris.