RAGGI, Nicolas-Bernard

French sculptor of Italian origin (born Niccolò Bernardo Raggi). He studied in Florence with Lorenzo [Bartolini]((‘/bio/b/bartolin/biograph.html) and he won there a prize founded by Elisa Bonaparte, Grand Duchess of Tuscany. Before 1814 he moved to Marseille and started to work in trade, but finally he entered the workshop of François-Joseph Bosio. He was admitted to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1814.

He first exhibited at the Salon of 1817 where he presented the Jeune discobole, pret a lancer son disque (Young Discus Thrower, Ready to Launch his Discus).

He received a Gold Medal for his bronze monument to Henri IV, exhibited at the Salon of 1819. He became Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur in 1824.

Henri IV

Nicolas-Bernard Raggi was an Italian sculptor active in France.

The statues of monarchs which stood in the centre of Royal Squares in France in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries appeared as the symbol of their power. The Revolution was quick to pull them down, thus demonstrating that royal authority had passed into the hands of those who had so long been subject to it. Yet, one of Louis XVIII’s first acts was to order their replacement.

Provincial towns followed the example of Paris. Raggi’s Henri IV is a modified replica of the statue showed at the Salon of 1819.

Henri IV

Monument to Comte Frochot