Gorilla defeating a Gladiator ("Retiaire et Gorille")

myminifactory

This is one of the most deeply unsettling and visually striking sculptures to have been exhibited in Europe during the 19th century. Fremiet was a highly skilled sculptor first recognized for his meticulous observations of animals. Later, he created larger groups like this, capturing dramatic battles between man and beast. This shocks viewers because it showed the animal victorious, breaking with previously established sculptural traditions. Fremiet's depiction of a triumphant gorilla over a human had a particularly significant impact and resonance at that time. Europeans had only discovered gorillas around 1850 and were intensely fascinated by them. In 1871, Charles Darwin's The Descent of Man laid out the shared ancestry of humans and modern apes. Darwin and others sparked intense contemporary debates about the place of humans in the natural world order.