In front of the Orsay Museum...

When I last wrote about the Orsay Museum  (see here) one was not allowed to take photos inside. This seems now to have changed…, but in any case, what now follows is about what you find outside the museum, on the esplanade.

The major installation here is a collection of six statues, referred to as representing the “Six Continents”. They were originally created for the third Paris World’s Fair or “Exposition Universelle” in 1878, could be found in front of the “Palais de Trocadero” and remained there until the construction of the “Palais de Chaillot” for the Paris World’s Fair in 1937 (referred to as “International Exposition of Art and Technology in Modern Life”, see my posts here and here). An amazing thing is that these statues, which in 1935 were transferred to the city of Nantes, ended up on a public dump before being saved and installed in front of the museum when it was opened in 1986. (I found the picture of the abandoned statues on this site.)

The Eiffel Tower was of course constructed only 11 years later than the 1878 exhibition, but here we can see not only where the “Six Continents” were placed, but also some pictures of animal statues, which also remained at the Trocadero until 1935 and now also can be found in front of the Orsay Museum.

A closer look on the statues, representing the “Six Continents”.

Well…

So, in front of the Museum, we can also find the “Jeune Eléphant pris au Piège” par Emmanuel Fremiet…

… the “Rhinocéros” by Alfred Jacquemart…

… and the “Cheval à la Herse” by Pierre Rouillard.

Behind the museum, you can find two statues by Antoine Bourdelle, named “Force de Volonté” and “Victoire”. (I wrote recently, here, about the Bourdelle Museum.)

Here are links to the different artists named above: Alexandre Schoenewerk, Alexandre Falguière, Eugène Delaplanche, Ernest Hiolle, Aimé Millet, Mathurin Moreau-Vauthier, Emmanuel Fremiet, Alfred Jacquemart, Pierre Rouillard, Antoine Bourdelle.