He is famous for his 1874 sculpture of Joan of Arc in Paris (and its "sister" statues in Philadelphia and Portland, Oregon) and the monument to Ferdinand de Lesseps in Suez.

His earliest work was in scientific lithography (osteology), and for a while he served in times of adversity in the gruesome office of painter to the morgue.

[5] In 1853, Frémiet, "the leading sculptor of animals in his day" exhibited bronze sculptures of Emperor Napoleon III's basset hounds at the Paris Salon.

It depicts a large primate with a spear wound in his shoulder, carrying a still-alive female victim and a stone weapon.

Named an Officer of the French Legion of Honor in 1878, he became a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1892, and succeeded Antoine-Louis Barye as professor of animal drawing at the Natural History Museum of Paris.