Pierre Granier on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
Pierre Granier (1655 — 1715) was a proficient but minor French sculptor, trained in the excellent atelier of Louvre Museum on-line catalogue
Pierre Granier (1655 — 1715) was a proficient but minor French sculptor, trained in the excellent atelier of François Girardon
François Girardon (10 March 1628 – 1 September 1715) was a French sculptor of the Louis XIV style or French Baroque, best known for his statues and busts of Louis XIV and for his statuary in the gardens of the Palace of Versailles.
Biograph ...
who produced a generation of highly competent sculptors for the Bâtiments du Roi
The Bâtiments du Roi (, "King's Buildings") was a division of the Maison du Roi ("King's Household") in France under the Ancien Régime. It was responsible for building works at the King's residences in and around Paris.
History
The Bâtiments ...
. Granier served as a modest member of the extensive team that provided sculpture for the Château de Versailles
The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed ...
and its gardens
A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate bot ...
. Strict control over the subjects, scale, materials and to a great extent the design of sculpture for Versailles was exercised by the ''premier peintre du Roi'', 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 ...
. According to Antoine-Nicolas Dézallier d'Argenville, Le Brun provided a wax model for Granier's marble group ''Ino and Melicertes'', and a ''Shepherdess'' was sculpted after a sketch given by Le Brun.
Born at Les Matelles near Montpellier, he was an official of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, where he was received in 1686 and to whom he had presented his bust of Louis XIV.
When the marble sculpture of a god discovered at Smyrna
Smyrna ( ; grc, Σμύρνη, Smýrnē, or , ) was a Greek city located at a strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Due to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence, and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to promi ...
was offered to 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 Ver ...
, Granier was commissioned in 1686 to provide a missing right arm, raised and brandishing a thunderbolt: the result was the so-called '' Jupiter de Smyrne'', now conserved at the 
Louvre Museum
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
.Further reading
* F. Souchal, ''French Sculptors of the 17th and 18th Centuries, The reign of Louis XIV'', vol. II, Oxford, 1981.Notes
External links
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Granier, Pierre 17th-century French sculptors French male sculptors 18th-century French sculptors Versailles 1715 deaths 1655 births 18th-century French male artists