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Gorilla Carries a Woman

Gorilla Carries a Woman is a group sculpture by Emmanuel Frémiet from 1887. It was a revised version of an earlier Gorilla carrying a woman composition that had caused a scandal at the Salon of 1859. Frémiet created the first artistic depiction of a gorilla in 1859, making a life-size ape the central subject of a work of art for the first time. The 1887 version earned the artist a salon medal, but the French government ultimately declined to have it cast in bronze. The sculpture is now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, and a plaster version was shown in Dresden in 2016.

Emmanuel Frémiet\'s Gorilla Carries a Woman sculpture shows an ape-like figure carrying a nude woman over its shoulder.
Emmanuel Frémiet’s Gorilla Carries a Woman, shown in a black-and-white photograph of the sculpture on a textured base.
© Blancard, Hippolyte (1843 - 1924), photographe · CC0
Black-and-white photograph of the sculpture Gorilla Carries a Woman, showing a gorilla striding forward with an unconscious woman draped over its back.
Gorilla Carries a Woman, shown in a black-and-white photograph of the sculpture with a woman carried over the gorilla’s back.
© Sculpture by Emmanuel Frémiet. Photographer unknown. · Public domain
Fremiet\'s Gorilla Carries a Woman sculpture, showing a gorilla carrying a partially draped woman across its back.
Fremiet’s Gorilla Carries a Woman, a dramatic sculpture showing a gorilla carrying a woman across its back.
November 1887 © · Public domain
Emmanuel Frémiet’s Gorilla sculpture shows a gorilla carrying a woman on a rocky base, with an arrow in its arm.
Emmanuel Frémiet’s Gorilla depicts a gorilla carrying a woman, posed dynamically on a rocky base.
January 2014 © · CC BY 2.0
Gorilla Carries a Woman sculpture showing a gorilla standing upright with a woman slung over its shoulder, holding a rock on a rocky base.
Gorilla Carries a Woman, a dramatic sculpture of a gorilla carrying a woman over its shoulder.
July 2012 © · CC BY 2.0

Identification

TitleGorille enlevant une femme
Original French titleGorille enlevant une femme
TypePlaster sculptural group
Alternative titlesGorilla Carrying a Woman; Gorilla Carrying Off a Woman; Gorilla Abducting a Woman; Gorilla Stealing a Woman; Gorilla Carrying Off a Black Woman; Gorilla Carrying a Black Woman; Gorilla Abducting a Black Woman; Gorilla Trägt eine Frau

Historical context

Probable settingPrehistory
Second version scientific contextBy the 1870s scientists knew that real gorillas are peaceful, usually avoid humans, and have little interest in human women because of low libido and anatomical incompatibility; the 1887 version lagged behind this research
Relation to DarwinCreated in the same year that Darwin's On the Origin of Species caused a sensation
Second version subjectA gorilla abducting a woman; the woman is nude and resisting
First version scientific statusAt the time, Frémiet's depiction was considered in line with the latest science, but it conflicted with contemporary moral norms
First version scandal contextLinked to polemics surrounding Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, contemporary interest in bestiality, and the first direct Western observations of gorillas
First version materialPlaster
First version exhibitionShown at the Salon of 1859
First version subjectA female gorilla carrying off a Black African woman
First version titleGorille enlevant une négresse
First versionCreated in 1859; destroyed in 1861
Date1887
Second version titleGorille enlevant une femme

Creator

Artist backgroundTrained in both art and natural history; sought success in both fields and did not want to be regarded only as an animal sculptor
ArtistEmmanuel Frémiet

History and restoration

Bronze castingCast in bronze in 1889
Second version international receptionHad similar success in Munich in 1888
Reason bronze casting was not made in ParisThe Paris National Museum of Natural History withdrew it for fear of public disorder
Second version awardAwarded an honorary medal at the Salon of the Société des Artistes Français in 1887
Second version receptionScandalous because of its erotic charge, lubricity, and displayed bestiality; also described as a scandal at the Salon of 1887
Planned bronze castingPlanned for public display in Paris at the Jardin des Plantes
First version display conditionsDisplayed in a niche hidden by a curtain that only men and married women were allowed to lift
First version receptionCaused a scandal at the Salon of 1859; the jury rejected it as offensive and indecent, but it was exhibited with support from the Fine Arts administration

Significance

1915 cartoon reuseAn Australian Melbourne Punch cartoon renamed the work The German and Civilization during World War I
Ravished Armenia poster adaptationIn the 1919 U.S. film poster, the gorilla was replaced by a Turk and the woman by an Armenian
Interpretive debateOpinions vary because of differences between the first and second versions and because the work can be viewed either as art or as a natural-history museum object
Influence on other worksInspired serial novels, caricatures, the 1919 U.S. film poster for Ravished Armenia, and later filmmakers Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack
Influence on anti-German posterInspired Harry Ryle Hopps's 1917 anti-German poster Destroy This Mad Brute, created in his Los Angeles office
Influence on King KongOne of the sources of inspiration for the creators of King Kong
Commercial reproductionReproductions sold relatively successfully as statuettes and became popular on mantels and desks among American admirers
1920 cartoon reuseThe German satirical magazine Kladderadatsch reused the work to depict African soldiers from the French colonies in the Rhineland in a highly racist way
Frémiet's aimHe aimed to excel in both art and natural history and wanted recognition beyond being only an animal sculptor
First artistic gorilla depiction claimDescribed as the first artistic, not merely scientific, depiction of a gorilla
First life-sized ape as main subject claimDescribed as the first depiction in which a life-sized ape became the main figure

Physical characteristics

Woman depictionThe woman is now naked and no longer inert; she tries to repel the animal
Gorilla woundAn arrow embedded in one arm
Second version compositionMore compact and impressive than the first version
Gorilla depictionThe animal's arm is almost masculine
Gorilla object heldA large stone in one forepaw

Iconography and meaning

Iconographic referenceRenews the theme of the satyr and bacchante, including James Pradier's famous 1834 version

Appearance

Stone symbolismThe stone resembles a Paleolithic biface
Woman clothingNude; at most a hairband with half of a gorilla jaw and a rudimentary belt

Discovery and provenance

Artist's researchFrémiet researched the stone tools used by prehistoric humans

Location and ownership

2016 exhibitionShown in the exhibition Die Vermessung des Unmenschen at the Kunsthalle im Lipsius-Bau in Dresden
Current status of plaster originalThe original patinated plaster sculpture is preserved there
Current location of plaster originalMusée d'Arts de Nantes
Current location of bronze versionAllerton Park in Illinois
Bronze display locationLawn of the American Museum of Natural History in New York

Materials

Bronze version materialBronze
Original materialPatinated plaster