Premier Artiste
Premier Artiste is a bronze sculpture by Paul Richer, created in 1890 and displayed in Paris. It depicts a Stone Age man carving a mammoth with a flint tool. At the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, the scene places prehistoric craft within the museum’s sculpture collection.
Richer first presented the composition in plaster at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1890, before the state commissioned its bronze version. Richer was also an anatomist, linking the subject to scientific study. He drew on research, including an examination of a Cro-Magnon skull, when shaping the prehistoric subject. Louis Figuier’s L’Homme primitif helped popularise interest in prehistoric life during the nineteenth century.
The museum displays its sculpture collection outdoors, where weather makes regular maintenance necessary. The flint tool remains the smallest detail in this scene of prehistoric making.
- City
- Paris
- Content updated
Take this page with you
The myTuur app is free, and once you are standing at a spot its story starts by itself.
Spots like this one are the stops myTuur strings into tours through Paris. In the app, each story begins where you stand: walk up to a spot and it starts, read it on screen or listen as you go, then follow the route to the next one.
What is myTuur?
myTuur is a free city-guide app. Its tours are built from spots, and each spot carries a story that starts when you get there, to read or to listen to as you like.