Jean-Joseph Espercieux (Marseille, 22 July 1757 - Paris, 6 May 1840) was a French sculptor.

Life

A carpenter's son, he moved to Paris in 1776 to study in the studio of Charles-Antoine Bridan and (on an irregular basis) those of Jean-Joseph Foucou

Jean-Joseph Foucou

Jean-Joseph Foucou was a French sculptor.Foucou was born at Riez, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. A student at the École de peinture et de sculpture of Marseille, he went to Paris, where he entered the workshop of Jean-Jacques Caffieri...

, Pierre Julien

Pierre Julien

Pierre Julien was a French sculptor who worked in a full range of rococo and neoclassical styles.He served an early apprenticeship at Le Puy-en-Velay, near his natal village of Saint-Paulien, then at the École de dessin of Lyon, then entered the Parisian atelier of Guillaume Coustou the Younger...

 and Philippe-Laurent Roland

Philippe-Laurent Roland

Philippe-Laurent Roland was a French sculptor. A native of Pont-à-Marcq, Nord, he died in Paris. His art is neoclassical in style; he worked a great deal in stone and in terra cotta. Some of his reliefs may be seen on the facade of the Louvre....

. His main influence seems to have been 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...

, though his career prior to the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

 is little known. During the Revolution he was heavily pro-Republican and played an active role as one of the presidents of the Societe Republicaine des Arts, making speeches favouring the use of antique costume and patriotic subjects. He exhibited regularly at the Paris Salon

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...

, mainly portrait busts, from 1793.

His career's peak came with state commissions during the French Consulate

French Consulate

The Consulate was the government of France between the fall of the Directory in the coup of 18 Brumaire in 1799 until the start of the Napoleonic Empire in 1804...

 and First French Empire

First French Empire

The First French Empire , also known as the Greater French Empire or Napoleonic Empire, was the empire of Napoleon I of France...

, such as a plaster bust of Cicero

Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...

 (1803, Fontainebleau, Chateau), a plaster statue of Mirabeau (1804-5; present location unknown) for the Palais du Luxembourg, a marble relief of The Victory of Austerlitz for the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel (1810, still in situ) and marble allegorical reliefs for the Fontaine de la Paix in the Marche Saint-Germain in Paris (1810; now Rue Bonaparte).

External links

• http://www.answers.com/topic/jean-joseph-espercieux-1