The original equestrian sculpture of Joan of Arc by Emmanuel Frémiet was commissioned by the French Republic’s first president, Napoleon III, in 1874. The famous artwork is located in Place des Pyramids, Paris. A copy was purchased in 1890 and placed on the Grand Avenue Bridge in Philadelphia. In 1959, it was moved outside of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Similar versions of this gilded bronze statue, called Jeanne d’Arc, are in Nancy, France, New Orleans, Louisiana, Portland, Oregon and Melbourne, Australia. The model for Joan was an 18 year-old peasant girl named Aimee Girod. Ironically, like the saint, the woman burned to death in her apartment at age 81.
