HÉBERT, Pierre-Eugène-Emile

French sculptor, part of a family of sculptors. He was the son of the sculptor Pierre Hébert, and his sister Hélène Hébert (1825-1909) was also sculptor. He studied both with his father and with Jean-Jacques Feuchère.

Hébert participated in the SalonGLOSSARYIn the French language of the 18th and 19th centuries it designated an actual exhibition space, as well as the academic art exhibitions staged in the Salon d'Apollon of the Louvre since 1667. From 1737, the exhibitions took place biennially and, after the French Revolution, annually in the Salon Carré of the Louvre in Paris. Towards the end of the 19th century the official Salon jury was dissolved in order to make way for a committee of state-approved artists, i.e. former Salon members, who created the highly influential Société des Artistes Français. de Paris and the Exposition Universelle (1855), created the allegorical statues La Comédie and Le Drame for the vaudeville theatre in Paris, and was awarded a Second Class Medal in 1872. Hébert was one of the few sculptors to work with the renowned bronzeGLOSSARYAn alloy of copper (usually about 90 per cent) and tin, often also containing small amounts of other metals such as lead or zinc. Since antiquity it has been the metal most commonly used in cast sculpture because of its strength, durability, and the fact that it is easily workable - both hot and cold - by a variety of processes. It is easier to cast than copper because it has a lower melting-point, and its great tensile strength makes possible the protrusion of unsupported parts - an advantage over marble sculpture. The colour of bronze is affected by the proportion of tin or other metals present, varying from silverish to a rich, coppery red, and its surface beauty can be enhanced when it acquires a patina. fondeur Georges Servant, and their artistic collaboration resulted in pieces of the Neo-Grecian and Egyptian Revival style.