Animalier

Critics and public alike had naturally begged the question of Fremiets relationship to the leading animalier sculptor of his day, Antoine-Louis Barye (1795-1875). Fremiet, however, was determined not to be typecast as just an animalier artist.

Chadwick Thayer had already achieved a local reputation as an animalier when he executed this portrait of the Yorkshire terrier belonging to the Reverend John White Chadwick, who was the pastor of the Second Unitarian Church in Brooklyn (which the Thayer family attended) and who officiated at Thayer's marriage in June 1875.

He observed that unlike humans, animals never willingly posed, which meant that an animalier had to be "an earnest student of anatomy" or he could not accurately portray his subjects.