Piat Joseph Sauvage or Pieter Joseph Sauvage (19 January 1744 in

Tournai Tournai or Tournay ( ; ; nl, Doornik ; pcd, Tornai; wa, Tornè ; la, Tornacum) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Hainaut, Belgium. It lies southwest of Brussels on the river Scheldt. Tournai is part of Euromet ...

– 11 June 1818 in Tournai) was a

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

, sculptor, printmaker and academic lecturer from the

Southern Netherlands The Southern Netherlands, also called the Catholic Netherlands, were the parts of the Low Countries belonging to the Holy Roman Empire which were at first largely controlled by Habsburg Spain (Spanish Netherlands, 1556–1714) and later by the A ...

. He was known for his decorative paintings of interiors, grisailles and miniatures using

trompe l'oeil A trompe is a water-powered air compressor, commonly used before the advent of the electric-powered compressor. A trompe is somewhat like an airlift pump working in reverse. Trompes were used to provide compressed air for bloomery furnaces ...

effects as well as his small-scale portrait carvings.Pieter Joseph Sauvage
at the Netherlands Institute for Art History He often used precious materials such as marble, porcelain and ivory as the support for his paintings. He was a court painter to the governor of the Southern Netherlands, the Prince de Condé and the French king

Louis XVI Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...

and a member of the

Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture The Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture (; en, "Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture") was founded in 1648 in Paris, France. It was the premier art institution of France during the latter part of the Ancien Régime until it was abol ...

.Serge le Bailly de Tilleghem, ''Sauvage, Piat-Joseph''
Dictionnaire des peintres belges

Life

Sauvage was born in Tournai as the son of Antoine, a glass cutter. He worked in his father's

factory A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. T ...

until the age of 17, while completing his study at the school of drawing in Tournai. He went on to improve his artistic education at the Antwerp Academy under the direction of Martin Joseph Geeraerts, an expert in grisaille and history paintings. He worked for a time in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

in the service of the governor general of the Southern Netherlands. He then left for France where he joined the Académie de Saint-Luc in

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 ...

. In 1774 he made nine paintings including grisaille

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 representing ''The Death of Germanicus''. Piat Joseph Sauvage (1744-1818) - Infant Bacchanal - 108909 - National Trust

Sauvage was accepted into the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture after he produced a trompe l'oeil painting of a round table with an embroidered cloth on which are placed a

statue A statue is a free-standing sculpture in which the realistic, full-length figures of persons or animals are carved or cast in a durable material such as wood, metal or stone. Typical statues are life-sized or close to life-size; a sculpture t ...

of a child, a helmet, books, a

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

, and other items. This

canvas Canvas is an extremely durable plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, shelters, as a support for oil painting and for other items for which sturdiness is required, as well as in such fashion objects as handbags ...

is at the

Palace of Fontainebleau Palace of Fontainebleau (; ) or Château de Fontainebleau, located southeast of the center of Paris, in the commune of Fontainebleau, is one of the largest French royal châteaux. The medieval castle and subsequent palace served as a residence ...

which also has other over the door decorative works by Sauvage. As his fame grew, he was appointed the court painter of the Prince de Condé, and later of the French king

and the Royal Family. During this period, he painted

Marie-Antoinette Marie Antoinette Josèphe Jeanne (; ; née Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was the last queen of France before the French Revolution. She was born an archduchess of Austria, and was the penultimate child and ...

and produced paintings for the chapel of Saint-Cloud. His appointment as royal artist did not keep him from joining the popular side of the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

. His painting surprisingly did not slow down during this period of political upheaval. From 1804 to 1807, he painted

porcelain Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises mainl ...

figurines for the famous Sèvres porcelain factory. In 1808 he returned to

to become the director of the local Academy of Drawing. During his tenure, artists such as Antoine Payen studied there. He also painted the ''

Seven Sacraments There are seven sacraments of the Catholic Church, which according to Catholic theology were instituted by Jesus and entrusted to the Church. Sacraments are visible rites seen as signs and efficacious channels of the grace of God to all those ...

'' in the choir of Tournai

cathedral A cathedral is a church that contains the '' cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denomination ...

which replaced tapestries stolen by the French during the French occupation of the Southern Netherlands.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sauvage, Piat Painters from the Austrian Netherlands 1744 births 1818 deaths Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Antwerp) alumni Trompe-l'œil artists Court painters Members of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture