Michel Corneille l'Aîné by Robert Tournières

Jean Cornu (1650,

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

– 1710 / 1715) was a French

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

, most of whose works were designed for the gardens of the

Palace of Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, Yvelines, Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 19 ...

Life

Cornu's father was from

Dieppe Dieppe (; Norman: ''Dgieppe'') is a coastal commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region of northern France. Dieppe is a seaport on the English Channel at the mouth of the river Arques. A regular ferry service runs to Newha ...

, where he sent his son to train in the studio of a sculptor specialising in ivory - none of Cornu's early works in that medium have survived. He regularly worked as a 'sculptor in ordinary' at the court of

Louis XIV , house = Bourbon , father = Louis XIII , mother = Anne of Austria , birth_date = , birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France , death_date = , death_place = Palace of Vers ...

. In 1673 he won the Grande Prix Colbert, later known as the

Prix de Rome The Prix de Rome () or Grand Prix de Rome was a French scholarship for arts students, initially for painters and sculptors, that was established in 1663 during the reign of Louis XIV of France. Winners were awarded a bursary that allowed them t ...

. In 1678 he won second prize in sculpture at the French School in Rome. Colbert, first minister to the king of France, set aside a fund to allow a group of French artists to stay in Rome studying antique sculpture and producing copies of them for the Palace of Versailles. Cornu worked on the decoration of the palace's facades with allegorical figures of music and

lyric poetry Modern lyric poetry is a formal type of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person. It is not equivalent to song lyrics, though song lyrics are often in the lyric mode, and it is also ''not'' equi ...

and mythological figures such as

Calliope In Greek mythology, Calliope ( ; grc, Καλλιόπη, Kalliópē, beautiful-voiced) is the Muse who presides over eloquence and epic poetry; so called from the ecstatic harmony of her voice. Hesiod and Ovid called her the "Chief of all Muses" ...

. He also produced sculptures for the gardens, such as a marble copy of the

Farnese Hercules The ''Farnese Hercules'' ( it, Ercole Farnese) is an ancient statue of Hercules, probably an enlarged copy made in the early third century AD and signed by Glykon, who is otherwise unknown; the name is Greek but he may have worked in Rome. Like ...

(after a plaster copy brought from Rome) and an allegorical figure of Africa, as well as large ornamental vases with

bas-relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...

s showing classical mythological scenes (famously photographed early in the 20th century by

Eugène Atget Eugène Atget (; 12 February 1857 – 4 August 1927) was a French ''flâneur'' and a pioneer of documentary photography, noted for his determination to document all of the architecture and street scenes of Paris before their disappearance to mod ...

). He collaborated with other sculptors and so many of the works at the palace cannot be definitely assigned to a single artist, but are instead attributed to the group of sculptors working for the king. The drawings for the facade sculptures at Versailles were by

Charles Le Brun Charles Le Brun (baptised 24 February 1619 – 12 February 1690) was a French painter, physiognomist, art theorist, and a director of several art schools of his time. As court painter to Louis XIV, who declared him "the greatest French artist of ...

and Cornu and the others worked from these. He was made a member of the academy on 5 July 1681 and a professor in 1706. Versailles Demi-Lune Hercule Farnese

Works

Versailles gardens

*Marble vases *''The Sacrifice of

Iphigenia In Greek mythology, Iphigenia (; grc, Ἰφιγένεια, , ) was a daughter of King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra, and thus a princess of Mycenae. In the story, Agamemnon offends the goddess Artemis on his way to the Trojan War by hunting ...

'' (1683), marble,

Medici Vase The Medici Vase is a monumental marble bell-shaped krater sculpted in Athens in the second half of the 1st century AD as a garden ornament for the Roman market. It is now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Description Standing 1.52 metres ...

-form with reliefs.. Parterre de Latone, Versailles

*Bacchus, (1675–1683), marble,

Borghese Vase The Borghese Vase is a monumental bell-shaped krater sculpted in Athens from Pentelic marble in the second half of the 1st century BC as a garden ornament for the Roman market; it is now in the Louvre Museum. Original Iconography Standing 1. ...

-form. Parterre de Latone, Versailles. Inscribed onto the UNESCO World Heritage Register in 1979 *Two vases with reliefs of oak branches. *The Hunters, marble group, copied from a classical work *''America'' (1682), in collaboration with P Picart and ''Africa'' (1682–169

marble, collaboration with Georges Sibrayque. Two marble statues, forming art of the scheme commissioned by Louis XIV for the Parterre d'Eau at Versailles, and is one of the group of four statues known collectively as ''the four parts of the world'' *Copy of the Farnese Hercules (1684–1686) in the King's Garden, marble after a plaster copy brought to Versailles from Rome *''Venus Giving Arms to Aeneas''
Article by James David draper, in the Journal of the Metropolitan Museum of New York. 1989 page 223. (1704), now in the

Metropolitan Museum The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, New York.

Versailles facade

*''Music'' and ''Lyric Poetry'' *''Calliope'', removed from the facade during early 20th-century restoration work and put into storage

References

Bibliography

*Draper, James David. "Arms for Aeneas: A Group Reattributed to Jean Cornu." Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol. 24 (1989). Nueva York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1989. * Jean Baptiste Colbert, Pierre Clément. ''Lettres, instructions et mémoires de Colbert'', published by Imprimerie impériale, 1868 * Jules Labarte''Histoire des arts industriels au moyen âge et à l'époque de la renaissance'', published by A. Morel et cie, 1864 * Karl-Heinrich von Heinecken, ''Dictionnaire des artistes, dont nous avons des estampes: avec une notice detaillée de leurs ouvrages gravés'', published by Breitkopf, 1790. * Annie-France Laurens, Krzysztof Pomian, ''L'Anticomanie: la collection d'antiquités aux 18e et 19e siècles'', published by Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, 1992 * ''Correspondance des directeurs de l'Académie de France à Rome avec les surintendants des bâtiments'', Escrito por Accademia di Francia (Rome, Italy), Société de l'histoire de l'art français (France), published by Charavay frères, 1888. Notes under article: v.2 1694–1699 *Jacques Girard, ''Versailles gardens: sculpture and mythology''. Published by Vendome Press, 1985

External links

Sculptures of Versailles
by Didier Rykner *Françoise de La Moureyre,"''Réflexions sur le style des statues aux façades du château de Versailles''"

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cornu, Jean 1650 births 1710s deaths 17th-century French sculptors French male sculptors 18th-century French sculptors Artists from Paris French Baroque sculptors 18th-century French male artists