Pierre louis Rouillard is an animal sculptor, professor of sculpture and anatomy. In 1837, he was seventeen years old and entered Cortot's workshop. He made his debut at the Salon that same year and sent mainly plaster casts, a few bronzes and also works in different materials: zinc, silver, cast iron (the latter made by the Val-d'Osne foundry). On the whole, he treated his subjects in an academic style. He obtained commissions for the Louvre, the Opera, the Commercial Court, and produced the cast iron Horse, 3.55 m, which used to stand in front of the old Trocadero and which now stands in front of the Musée d'Orsay, as well as an equestrian statue of François de la Rochefoucault, Marshal of France under François I, for the Château d'Esclimont. Throughout his career, Rouillard sought to achieve truth in the expression and anatomy of animals and to translate the animal into reality, which led him to prefer life-size, even colossal, subjects. Passionate about Decorative and Industrial Art, he worked with the main architects of this century (Duban, Lefuel, Garnier, Bailly, Davioud...) and the greatest foundrymen (Ducel, Durenne, Val d'Osne) to carry out commissions in the provinces and abroad, and to decorate private residences and castles. This orientation explains Rouillard's lack of interest in the production of small bronzes, although he was able to express his sense of observation perfectly in goldsmithing. His numerous prizes in agricultural competitions, produced for Christofle, bear witness to this. He made most of the models for this renowned silversmith.