PIGALLE, Jean-Baptiste

This bust was commissioned by the superintendent of royal buildings and gardens, Charles-Francoi Le Normand de Tournehem, who was also the uncle of Madame de Pompadour. It was intended for her residence, the Château de Bellevue, which was completed shortly before the bust was finished.

The bust is a delicate portrait; the lace at the marquise’s bodice, the petals of the flowers crowning her hair, and the wisps that curl into the locks of her elaborate coiffure demanded the most subtle kind of work. Pigalle aimed for accuracy, and the sculptural portrait accord with painted ones of the period by Jean-Marc Nattier or Maurice Quentin de La Tour.

The portrait was completed in 1751 when Madame de Pompadour was thirty years old. It was probably meant for her residence château de Bellevue, which was finished the same year. She chose the stone for the bust, a hard and brittle marble, with the intention of promoting the use of local French materials. This piece was the first to be made of the white marble from the newly discovered quarry of Sost in the French Pyrenees.

In the eighteenth century artist strove to invent new techniques, new ways to obtain results with less effort and, mainly, at less cost. Works of art were now marketable items and this raised the issue of how to market them. Porcelain thus came to used as a medium for figurines. Although they were fragile, they had the advantage of possessing colours of permanent freshness. The Meissen manufactory in Germany is the oldest and most renowned of the eighteenth-century porcelain factories, but it was by no means the only one. In France, on the other hand, the search foe an ‘ersatz’ marble resulted in the invention of a technique which was to become known as ‘biscuit’. Biscuit figurines were produced in large quantities, especially at the S�vres manufactory. Many leading sculptors designed models for biscuit figurines or consented to have their statues reproduced in small biscuit copies.

Thus, after receiving considerable acclaim at the Salon of 1750 for his marble Child with Birdcage, Pigalle agreed to let the S�vres manufactory publish a reduced and altered version in biscuit (the biscuit version shows two children while the original only has one child). The biscuit was left uncoloured, for French collectors preferred a plain white finish, either matte or polished to look like marble.

Pigalle revealed in this marvelously studied, unsentimentalized sculpture how brilliantly he could convey not only infant flesh but even infant character. An actual portrait of the one-year-old son of the court financier Paris de Montmartel, it appeared at the Salon of 1750, and its popularity was so great that it nearly eclipsed that of the Mercury. This was Pigalle’s first essay in what was almost a new genre, or rather a return to the antique Roman type of statues of children. Pigalle’s statue became in fact a pendant to an antique one presumably already owned by the financier, of a child holding a bird.

The statue’s success led to its being duplicated and much copied, and Pigalle himself returned once or twice to the theme of children, now sitting, now standing, usually with fruit or a bird. They may be charming, but they seem separated from the first and most famous example by its pronounced, idiosyncratic portrait air. Pigalle seems to have recognized its worth by buying it back later for much more than he had been paid; it was in his studio at his death and was the most highly valued of all the sculpture he then possessed.

One of the popular motifs of the period among secondary figures in paintings was the Italian putto in the form of small child. They were everywhere, alongside heroes, in allegories, and even portraits. Putti also invaded small-scale sculpture as exemplified by Pigalle’s Infant with Cage.

This work is thought to be a portrait of the only son of Pâris de Montmartel (1690-1766), court banker and godfather of Madame de Pompadour. The child is portrayed at the age of one.

Commissioned in 1750, the statue, which reproduces the features of the marquise de Pompadour, was placed in a grove dedicated to Love in the gardens of the Château de Bellevue. The allegory is described in the terms set out in manuals of iconology: wearing a plain white dress, with her breast and arms bare, Friendship is ready to help those she loves; at her feet are flowers from all four seasons, for while Love lives in the moment, Friendship flourishes all through life.

Commissioned in 1750, the statue, which reproduces the features of the marquise de Pompadour, was placed in a grove dedicated to Love in the gardens of the Château de Bellevue. The allegory is described in the terms set out in manuals of iconology: wearing a plain white dress, with her breast and arms bare, Friendship is ready to help those she loves; at her feet are flowers from all four seasons, for while Love lives in the moment, Friendship flourishes all through life.

Pigalle was born and died in Paris. A pupil of Jean-Baptiste II Lemoyne, he spent the years 1736 to 1739 in Rome. The mausoleum of the Mar�chal de Saxe, begun between 1752 and 1753 and resumed in 1770, was inaugurated in 1776 in the Lutheran church of St Thomas in Strasbourg. Standing before the pyramid of Immortality, the Mar�chal moves towards the sarcophagus opened by Death, while France tries to intercede; the stricken Hercules symbolizes the French army; the leopard, lion, and eagle represent conquered nations. The strongly literary flavour of the allegories, whose meaning is given in the sculptor’s memoirs, does not obscure the masterly technique with which the work is executed.

Pigalle was born and died in Paris. A pupil of Jean-Baptiste II Lemoyne, he spent the years 1736 to 1739 in Rome. The mausoleum of the Mar�chal de Saxe, begun between 1752 and 1753 and resumed in 1770, was inaugurated in 1776 in the Lutheran church of St Thomas in Strasbourg. Standing before the pyramid of Immortality, the Mar�chal moves towards the sarcophagus opened by Death, while France tries to intercede; the stricken Hercules symbolizes the French army; the leopard, lion, and eagle represent conquered nations. The strongly literary flavour of the allegories, whose meaning is given in the sculptor’s memoirs, does not obscure the masterly technique with which the work is executed.

For about twenty years Pigalle worked on the tomb of Maurice of Saxony, his finest accomplishment. The tomb avoided the common pitfalls of compositions of works on that scale by subtly organizing all the figures around the movement of the hero. In an inventive funeral march, the heroic marshal calmly descends a set of steps toward death and glory, flanked by allegories (Hercules, France, Love) and symbols of power (lion, leopard). Pigalle managed to revitalize all the elements in this superbly orchestrated ensemble.

This terracotta sculpture, now in New York, was the destined to be the preparatory model for Pigalle’s morceau de reception. It was exhibited at the Salon of 1742. The marble version was presented to the Academy in 1742 and became instantly famous. It was Pigalle’s first tremendous success, in fact, the most successful ever in the Academy’s history.

The marble statue was presented to the Academy in 1742 as Pigalle’s morceau de reception, and became instantly famous. It was Pigalle’s first tremendous success, in fact, the most successful ever in the Academy’s history. He received a royal command for large-scale marble versions of this and its pendant, a Venus which the king was to dispatch to Frederick the Great.

All Pigalle’s art seems concentrated in this. There is a concentration of form, allied with the concentrated pose, Mercury is the perfect allegory of speed and power, the expression of all those qualities associated with Mercury. The action of tying the sandal hardly matters; what is supremely summed up in the work is a sense of coiled power.

The marble statue was presented to the Academy in 1742 as Pigalle’s morceau de reception, and became instantly famous. It was Pigalle’s first tremendous success, in fact, the most successful ever in the Academy’s history. He received a royal command for large-scale marble versions of this and its pendant, a Venus which the king was to dispatch to Frederick the Great.

All Pigalle’s art seems concentrated in this. There is a concentration of form, allied with the concentrated pose, Mercury is the perfect allegory of speed and power, the expression of all those qualities associated with Mercury. The action of tying the sandal hardly matters; what is supremely summed up in the work is a sense of coiled power.

Pigalle received the commission from the city of Reims for the monument to Louis XV, preferred to the aging Lambert-Sigisbert Adam and to Louis-Claude Vass�.

Pigalle set his personal seal upon it by including himself on the monument. Pigalle executed in bronze the king clad in Roman military costume but with arm benevolently extended. This theme of benevolence guided him in the figures below, also of bronze: not the conventional slaves signifying a conqueror, but emblematic figures of mild government and of a contented nation. The latter was symbolized by a citizen who is a portrait of Pigalle. The Citizen is a powerfully modelled figure, which suggests the influence not of the antique, nor Bernini, but Michelangelo. The figure has a brooding, timeless sense which lifts it out of all associations with the allegorical luggage around it, and with the rest of the monument.

The original statue of the king by Pigalle was destroyed in 1792 and replaced in 1818 by a bronze copy, made by Pierre Cartellier in 1818. The sculptures on the pedestal are still by Pigalle.

Pigalle received the commission from the city of Reims for the monument to Louis XV, preferred to the aging Lambert-Sigisbert Adam and to Louis-Claude Vass�.

Pigalle set his personal seal upon it by including himself on the monument. Pigalle executed in bronze the king clad in Roman military costume but with arm benevolently extended. This theme of benevolence guided him in the figures below, also of bronze: not the conventional slaves signifying a conqueror, but emblematic figures of mild government and of a contented nation. The latter was symbolized by a citizen who is a portrait of Pigalle. The Citizen is a powerfully modelled figure, which suggests the influence not of the antique, nor Bernini, but Michelangelo. The figure has a brooding, timeless sense which lifts it out of all associations with the allegorical luggage around it, and with the rest of the monument.

The original statue of the king by Pigalle was destroyed in 1792 and replaced in 1818 by a bronze copy, made by Pierre Cartellier in 1818. The sculptures on the pedestal are still by Pigalle.

Pigalle received the commission from the city of Reims for the monument to Louis XV, preferred to the aging Lambert-Sigisbert Adam and to Louis-Claude Vass�.

Pigalle set his personal seal upon it by including himself on the monument. The emblematic figure of a contented nation was symbolized by a citizen who is a portrait of Pigalle. The Citizen is a powerfully modelled figure, which suggests the influence not of the antique, nor Bernini, but Michelangelo. The figure has a brooding, timeless sense which lifts it out of all associations with the allegorical luggage around it, and with the rest of the monument.

The architect Ange-Jacques Gabriel designed four vases, two representing spring and two autumn, for Louis XV’s Château at Choisy, near Sceaux. The sculptors Jean-Baptiste Pigalle and Nicolas-S�bastien Adam each carved one on the theme of autumn (now both in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), and the Flemish-born sculptor Jacques Verberckt (1704-1771) carved the pair dedicated to spring (now in the Mus�e du Louvre, Paris, and in the Château de Malmaison).

Like many garden ornaments of the period of Louis XIV and Louis XV, the vases are indebted to ancient precedent. The kalyx-krater form, based on an ancient Greek vase type, with fluted base and handles springing from satyrs’ heads, became a paradigm for Baroque and Rococo garden ornaments.

Pigalle’s self-portrait has a heavy authority along with its pungent self-awareness.

Pigalle made this strikingly realistic self-portrait on his completion of the mausoleum of Marshal Maurice de Saxe in Strasbourg.

Pigalle is best known by his large-scale monuments. Yet he also found time to execute some busts, chiefly of writers and doctors - significantly not courtiers but people who had thought and worked, and who often were his friends. These busts seem the result of profound sympathies: personalities that had stirred Pigalle by some affinity with his own. There is never any virtuoso display, either in the costume or the sculptor’s treatment of it; the neck and shoulders are treated with sobriety and the face too is sober, unsmiling, usually somewhat tense. The terracotta Desfriches is probably the most outstanding achievement in its simplicity and worried lifelikeness. The physiognomy of this amateur, friend of Pigalle and Cochin, has a resemblance to Pigalle’s own; it gives the same sense too of life’s pressure upon the features, and all the working of the clay expresses the tensions which have gone to shape the exposed flesh, marked by lines about the mouth and heavy-lidded eyes.

The work of Pigalle reflects the aesthetic transition from Rococo to Neo-classicism. His work embodies the contrast between an almost radical naturalism in translating anatomical details on the one hand and the polished, classically derived forms and clear straight lines of the Louis XVI style on the other. In his work Pigalle sought to represent the individual with idealization and in all his intimate humanity. This is how the deceased Henri-Claude d’Harcourt is presented on his tomb in Notre-Dame in Paris.

The gaunt corps endeavours one last time to rise from the coffin, but shrouded Death holds up the hourglass which has run out, and the torch held by the dead man’s guardian spirit standing at his feet has gone out. Even the widow who stands beside her husband’s discarded military equipment no longer looks at the deceased but laments herself in prayerful entreaty.

Although features of the Baroque memento mori, the reminder of human mortality, are suggested here, this composition is essentially very untypical for a Baroque tomb.

Pigalle’s astonished Voltaire Nude was designed in 1770 and unveiled in 1776.

Pigalle’s astonished Voltaire Nude was designed in 1770 and unveiled in 1776.