During his short but brilliant career, Jean-Joseph Carriès explored alternative sculptural media such as ceramics and plaster, which were considered vastly inferior to marble and bronze. His works draw upon themes from Japanese art and Social Darwinism, none more impressively than his late masterpiece Le Grenouillard. The squat figure with bulging eyes and an elongated spine appears to be half man, half amphibian, yet he could also be likened to a netsuke, a whimsical Japanese carving, but on a grand scale.