Henri IV
by RAGGI, Nicolas-Bernard, Marble
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.