Jean-Baptiste Vietty, (14 December 1787 - 1842) was a French sculptor and archaeologist. Born at

Amplepuis Amplepuis () is a commune in the Rhône department in eastern France. Demography See also Communes of the Rhône department The following is a list of the 208 communes of the Rhône department of France. This list does not includes the Ly ...

in the département of the Rhône, the son of a decorative plasterworker of Italian origin, Vietty worked in the ateliers of the painter Pierre Cogell, then of the sculptor and medallist

Pierre Cartellier Pierre Cartellier (2 December 1757 – 12 June 1831) was a French sculptor. Biography 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 Roya ...

and the neoclassical sculptor Joseph Chinard. Vietty was placed in command of the sculptures being executed for the stock exchange of

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

. At the Salon of 1822 he showed a plaster of the ''Nymphe de la Seine''. At the Salon of 1824 he received the ''médaille d’or'' for a ''Homère méditant l’Iliade'', His bronze version of the Medici '' Apollino'' in Florence is a fountain figure in the garden of the Musée des Beaux-Arts of Lyon (''illustration''). A professor both of the fine arts and the classical languages, in 1831 he published a historic and analytic study of the Roman and Gothic monuments of

Vienne Vienne (; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''Viéne'') is a landlocked department in the French region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. It takes its name from the river Vienne. It had a population of 438,435 in 2019.Institut de France The (; ) is a French learned society, grouping five , including the Académie Française. It was established in 1795 at the direction of the National Convention. Located on the Quai de Conti in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, the institute ...

Morea Expedition The Morea expedition (french: link=no, Expédition de Morée) is the name given to the land intervention of the French Army in the PeloponneseMorea is the name of the Peloponnese region in Greece, which was mainly used from the medieval per ...

in 1829. A man of independent temperament, he and

Edgar Quinet Edgar Quinet (; 17 February 180327 March 1875) was a French historian and intellectual. Biography Early years Quinet was born at Bourg-en-Bresse, in the ''département'' of Ain. His father, Jérôme Quinet, had been a commissary in the army, ...

decided, however, to separate themselves from the other members of the expedition shortly after the team's arrival in Greece in March 1829. The two subsequently split and Quinet was forced by illness to return to France. Vietty, ignoring official orders to return to France in November, continued his research in the Peloponnese and

Attica Attica ( el, Αττική, Ancient Greek ''Attikḗ'' or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the city of Athens, the capital of Greece and its countryside. It is a peninsula projecting into the Aegean S ...

until the summer of 1831. Upon his return to France the commission for the Morea expedition examined his manuscripts and, judging them of exceptional value, recommended them for publication. Unable to complete his work by 1835, when his stipend ran out, Vietty accepted commissions for sculpture. Between 1835 and 1841, under financial constraints, Vietty pawned his manuscripts and drawings in order to survive. He died at

Tarare Tarare is a commune in the Rhône department in eastern France. It lies on the Turdine river, 28 miles west-northwest of Lyon by rail. History The city was founded at the beginning of the 12th century, as the priory of Tarare by the Savigny A ...

in the Rhône, without having published a single page of his research in the Morea. A posthumous eulogy at the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres in 1858 presented him as

one of the most remarkable scientific and artistic personalities of our day... A great artist, a true scholar, he loved Science and Art for themselves, without ambition, without recompense, retaining in poverty all his admiration and enthusiasm. There are many who will mourn him, and yet he was a happy man. It is much to be desired that the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres confide the examination and cataloguing of his papers to a special commission, or at the least to an eminent Hellenist

. Nevertheless, all his manuscript notes on Greece have been lost, with the exception of two notebooks rediscovered in 2005 and partly edited.For example, Vietty's study of

Aegina Aegina (; el, Αίγινα, ''Aígina'' ; grc, Αἴγῑνα) is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina, the mother of the hero Aeacus, who was born on the island and ...

(September 1829) in Stéphane Gioanni, "Jean-Baptiste Vietty et l’Expédition de Morée (1829) : à propos de deux manuscrits retrouvés", ''Le Journal des Savants'', 2008. 2, p. 411-429.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vietty, Jean-Baptiste 1787 births 1842 deaths People from Rhône (department) 19th-century French sculptors French male sculptors French archaeologists People from Tarare 19th-century French male artists