Louis Petitot
Encyclopedia
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...
. He was the pupil and son-in-law of the sculptor Pierre Cartellier
Pierre Cartellier
Pierre Cartellier was a French sculptor.Born in Paris, he studied at the École Gratuite de Dessin in Paris and then in the studio of Charles-Antoine Bridan before attending the Académie Royale. During the French Revolution Cartellier was part of a team of sculptors who worked on the church of Ste...
.
Petitot won the Prix de Rome
Prix de Rome
The Prix de Rome was a scholarship for arts students, principally of painting, sculpture, and architecture. It was created, initially for painters and sculptors, in 1663 in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It was an annual bursary for promising artists having proved their talents by...
for sculpture and spent his time, 1815-19, at the French Academy in Rome
French Academy in Rome
The French Academy in Rome is an Academy located in the Villa Medici, within the Villa Borghese, on the Pincio in Rome, Italy.-History:...
as a pensioner of the King of France, Louis XVIII. On his return to Paris he worked again with Pierre Cartellier, who was engaged in an equestrian statue of Louis XIV
Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...
, to be erected in the cour d'honneur
Cour d'Honneur
Cour d'Honneur is the architectural term for defining a three-sided courtyard, created when the main central block, or corps de logis, is flanked by symmetrical advancing secondary wings, containing minor rooms...
of Versailles
Palace of Versailles
The Palace of Versailles , or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France. In French it is the Château de Versailles....
, as part of the celebration of the Bourbon Restoration
Bourbon Restoration
The Bourbon Restoration is the name given to the period following the successive events of the French Revolution , the end of the First Republic , and then the forcible end of the First French Empire under Napoleon – when a coalition of European powers restored by arms the monarchy to the...
; at Cartellier's death, only the horse had been cast in bronze. Petitot successfully completed the commission, which was erected in 1817.
In 1822 he completed a commemorative marble bust of Claude de Forbin
Claude de Forbin
Claude, chevalier, then count de Forbin-Gardanne was a French naval commander. In 1685-1688 he was on a diplomatic mission to Siam...
(1656-1733), which was exhibited in 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...
of 1822 and was purchased for Versailles.
He exhibited a Young Hunter Wounded by a Snake (illustration) 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...
of 1827, which was purchased for the Musée du Louvre, and partly on the strength of it, was invited to produce a standing sculpture of Louis XIV
Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...
, to be cast in bronze and set up in the place Saint-Sauveur, Caen
Caen
Caen is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the Calvados department and the capital of the Basse-Normandie region. It is located inland from the English Channel....
. It was formally inaugurated 24 May 1828, with such success that Petitot and the bronze-founder, Crosatier of Paris, were each named Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur. The monument was intended to replace the stone sculpture of Louis XIV, by Jean Postel, sculptor of Lyon, which was commissioned in 1684 and erected the following year, but which had been taken down and demolished during the 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...
.
Petitot was the sculptor of the marble bust of Pierre Cartellier on his tomb in the Cemetery of Père-Lachaise
Père Lachaise Cemetery
Père Lachaise Cemetery is the largest cemetery in the city of Paris, France , though there are larger cemeteries in the city's suburbs.Père Lachaise is in the 20th arrondissement, and is reputed to be the world's most-visited cemetery, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors annually to the...
, Paris, and a statue representing Friendship; the tomb was added to the lists of monuments historiques, 25 January 1990. For the tomb in the same plot of Cartellier's daughter, Petitot's sister-in-law, Charlotte Cartellier-Heim, he produced a bas-relief of a young couple watering a rosebush.
He was elected a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts
Académie des beaux-arts
The Académie des Beaux-Arts is a French learned society. It is one of the five academies of the Institut de France.It was created in 1795 as the merger of the:* Académie de peinture et de sculpture...
.
Other works
- The Capitulation of General Francisco BallesterosFrancisco BallesterosFrancisco Ballesteros, emerged as a career Spanish General during the Peninsular War.Ballasteros served against the First French Republic in the 1793 War of the Pyrenees...
at Campillo, a marble bas-relief commemorating the event in the French intervention in Spain of 4 August 1823, completed in 1831 (Louvre Museum). - The City of Lyon and The City of Marseille, stone sculptures for the south-east corner of Place de la ConcordePlace de la ConcordeThe 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 :...
, next to the Quai des Tuileries, 1836. - Portrait bust of Henri, duc de Rohan, colonel general of the Swiss Guard, completed in 1838 (Versailles).
- Portrait bust of Bon-Adrien Jeannot de Moncey, duke of Conegliano, marshal of France, (1843-45) (Versailles).
- Two marble bas-reliefs, Louis XIV Crowned by Victory, Protecting the Arts and Sciences and Helios of Rhodes, for the redecoration of the Escalier de la Reine, Versailles, completed in 1844.
- Four stone allegorical groups (Industry, Abundance, The City of Paris The Seine) for the pont du CarrouselPont du CarrouselThe Pont du Carrousel is a bridge in Paris, which spans the River Seine between the Quai des Tuileries and the Quai Voltaire.-History:Begun in 1831 in the prolongation of the rue des Saints-Pères on the Left Bank, the original bridge was known under that name until its inauguration, in 1834, when...
, 1846. - Funeral monument of Louis BonaparteLouis BonaparteLouis Napoléon Bonaparte, Prince Français, Comte de Saint-Leu , King of Holland , was the fifth surviving child and the fourth surviving son of Carlo Buonaparte and Letizia Ramolino...
, former king of Holland, comte de Saint-Leu, Church of Saint-Leu et Saint Gilles, Saint-Leu-la-Forêt (val d'Oise).