Achille-Joseph-Étienne Valois (13 January 1785 — 17 December 1862) was a French designer and sculptor who studied for a time in the atelier of Jacques-Louis David

Jacques-Louis David

Jacques-Louis David was an influential French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era...

 and whose sculptural works may be seen in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. Among his early works is the Fontaine de Léda

Fontaine de Léda

The Fontaine de Léda is a sculptural wall fountain built in 1806–1808 during the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte. The fountain depicts the legend of Leda and the Swan, with a central bas-relief panel by Achille Valois...

 (1806-08) in Fontainebleau style

School of Fontainebleau

The Ecole de Fontainebleau refers to two periods of artistic production in France during the late Renaissance centered around the royal Château de Fontainebleau, that were crucial in forming the French version of Northern Mannerism....

 re-sited in the Jardin du Luxembourg

Jardin du Luxembourg

The Jardin du Luxembourg, or the Luxembourg Gardens, is the second largest public park in Paris The Jardin du Luxembourg, or the Luxembourg Gardens, is the second largest public park in Paris The Jardin du Luxembourg, or the Luxembourg Gardens, is the second largest public park in Paris (224,500 m²...

. At the restoration of the Bourbons he hastened to execute a bust of Louis XVIII

Louis XVIII of France

Louis XVIII , known as "the Unavoidable", was King of France and of Navarre from 1814 to 1824, omitting the Hundred Days in 1815...

. In 1816 he sculpted a portrait of Madame Royale the duchesse d'Angoulême, eldest daughter of the late Louis XVI. His bust of the sculptor Antoine-Denis Chaudet

Antoine-Denis Chaudet

Antoine-Denis Chaudet was a French sculptor who worked in a neoclassical style.-Works:*Joseph Sold by his Brothers Antoine-Denis Chaudet (1763–1810) was a French sculptor who worked in a neoclassical style.-Works:*Joseph Sold by his Brothers Antoine-Denis Chaudet (1763–1810) was a French sculptor...

, with whom he had also studied, exhibited at the Salon of 1817

Paris Salon

The Salon , or rarely Paris Salon , beginning in 1725 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. Between 1748–1890 it was the greatest annual or biannual art event in the Western world...

, was bought in 1820 for the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Angers. He contributed a marble bas-relief of children representing Medicine intended for a fountain in Place de la Bastille

Place de la Bastille

The Place de la Bastille is a square in Paris, where the Bastille prison stood until the 'Storming of the Bastille' and its subsequent physical destruction between 14 July 1789 and 14 July 1790 during the French Revolution; no vestige of it remains....

 (1817) colossal statues of Louis XVI for Montpellier and the cast-iron Pêche des coquillages (1838-40) to the central Fontaines de la Concorde

Fontaines de la Concorde

The Fontaines de la Concorde are two monumental fountains located in the Place de la Concorde in the center of Paris. They were designed by Jacques Ignace Hittorff, and completed in 1840 during the reign of King Louis-Philippe...

, designed by Jacques Ignace Hittorff

Jacques Ignace Hittorff

Jakob Ignaz Hittorff was a German-born French architect who combined advanced structural use of new materials, notably cast iron, with conservative Beaux-Arts classicism in a career that spanned the decades from the Restoration to the Second Empire.After serving an apprenticeship to a mason in his...

 for Place de la Concorde

Place de la Concorde

The Place de la Concorde in area, it is the largest square in the French capital. It is located in the city's eighth arrondissement, at the eastern end of the Champs-Élysées.- History :...

.

As a draughtsman, Valois produced a drawing of the triumphal arrival of celebrated works of art from the Vatican in Paris, 1798, that was copied on a Sèvres porcelain "Etruscan" vase (Vase Étrusque à rouleaux) in 1813.

Valois was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur

Légion d'honneur

The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...

in 1825.