Prudence

These figures are from the tomb of Henri de Bourbon, Prince de Cond�.

Sarazin’s last work was the monument erected to Henri de Bourbon, Prince de Cond�, father of the great Cond�, in the church of St Paul-St Louis. It was begun in 1648, but the monument was not finished till 1663, three years after the artist’s death. In the nineteenth century it was moved by the Duc d’Aumale to Chantilly and reconstructed in a wholly new setting, with the result that in its present form only the individual groups and not the general arrangement represent the original intention of Sarazin. The groups, one of them the Prudence, reveal the importance of this late stage in Sarazin’s evolution; for here we see in fully developed form the style which was to dominate the sculpture of Versailles for the next two decades. It was Sarazin who invented in sculpture the peculiar mixture of classicism and Baroque which was to fit with the doctrine of Lebrun and to play its part in the style of Louis XIV.