Javanese Panther

Hernandez, a self-taught Spanish sculptor, spent his adult life in Paris. His work is distinguished by his method of taille directe, carving directly from a block of stone without the aid of a maquette or any other preparatory aid. Animals were his preferred subject, and he invariably found his models at the Paris zoo. “Day after day he would study them,” noted a Met curator in 1936, “or, shouldering a block of granite or diorite, set it up before a cage and slowly fashion it into the likeness of the living model before him.” This sculpture was displayed in front of the Spanish pavilion at the 1925 Paris exposition; it was later acquired by the American collectors Mr. and Mrs. Joseph John Kerrigan (Esther Slater Kerrigan), who in turn gave it to The Met.