42 Facts About Pierre Puget

Pierre Paul Puget was a French Baroque painter, sculptor, architect and engineer.

Pierre Puget's sculpture expressed emotion, pathos and drama, setting it apart from the more classical and academic sculpture of the Style Louis XIV.

Pierre Puget began his career at the age of fourteen, carving the elaborate wooden ornament of the galleys built in the Marseille shipyards.

Pierre Puget carved some decorative panels in Florence, and then, with a good recommendation from his employer, and samples of his paintings, he went to Rome and presented himself to the painter Pietro da Cortona, one of the early masters of the Baroque style.

Pierre Puget assisted Da Cortona in painting of the lavish ceilings of the Palazzo Barberini in Rome and the Palazzo Pitti at Florence.

Pierre Puget showed these to Jean Armand de Maille-Breze, Grand Admiral of the French fleet, and was given a commission to design a carved medallion for the stern of a new French warship, named for the Queen, Anne of Austria.

Pierre Puget began painting, mostly religious works, in the style of Annibale Carracci and Rubens.

Pierre Puget received a commission in 1649 to make several public fountains for new squares in Toulon.

Pierre Puget was recognized as a painter but still poorly paid; In 1653, he was commissioned by the Brotherhood of Corpus Domini to make two large paintings, The Baptism of Clovis and the Baptism of Constantine, for a total of one hundred forty livres, a very small amount for the time and amount of the work.

Pierre Puget used as his models two of the muscular workers who unloaded ships along the quay in front of the building.

Pierre Puget was paid fifteen hundred livres, to which the city authorities, pleased with the work, added a supplement of two hundred livres.

Pierre Puget's work was widely praised, and terra-cotta copies were made and circulated.

Pierre Puget was converted from a modestly-talented painter to a celebrated sculptor.

Pierre Puget's reputation spread beyond Provence; he was invited to Paris and received a commission from a nobleman named Girardin for two statues, one representing Hercules and the other the Earth and Janus, for a chateau in Normandy.

Pierre Puget then received an even more important commission from Nicolas Fouquet, the King's Minister of Finance, to make sculpture for Fouquet's new garden at Vaux-le-Vicomte, including a statue of Hercules, the personal symbol of Fouquet.

Pierre Puget decided to stay for a time in Italy, making long visits to Rome and Genoa.

Pierre Puget's principal patron in Italy was an Italian nobleman, Francesco Maria Sauli.

Pierre Puget made a notable statue, The Immaculate Conception, for the French patron Emmanuel Brignole, for the chapel of an Albergo in Genoa.

Pierre Puget returned to France in 1669 and divided his time between Toulon and Marseille.

Pierre Puget was offered the position chief of decoration for French warships, but before accepting he sent a list of his demands to Colbert; among others, he insisted on being considered an officer, not a worker; and to have final authority for designs, over that of the King's official artists, the painter Charles Le Brun and the royal sculptor Francois Girardon.

The French fleet needed new ships, and Pierre Puget was charged with decorating, ten new men-of-war, as well as designing elegant new building for the headquarters of the fleet.

Pierre Puget continued to work on other sculptural and artistic projects in Toulon, He sculpted a large marble group of the Virgin and Child for the church of Lorgues and created a monumental wooden retable still in place, for Toulon Cathedral.

Clairville changed all of the Pierre Puget's plans, removed decoration he considered unnecessary, and rejected his elegant new headquarters building.

Pierre Puget learned that, upon the instructions of Colbert, any work he did had to be approved at higher levels by Le Brun and the senior sculptors in Paris.

Pierre Puget was to design only what he was told to design.

In 1672, having no further work at the Naval Arsenal, Pierre Puget returned to his birthplace, Marseille.

Pierre Puget's first project was a new urban square and street, the Cours Saint-Louis, and rue Canabiere.

Pierre Puget created an ornate sculptural plaque with the coat of arms of the King to decorate the facade of the Hotel de Ville.

Pierre Puget designed a new fish market, completed in 1672, which is still in use, and La Vieille Charite, begun in 1679, originally a home for beggars and the indigent, now a cultural center.

Pierre Puget had still not broken into the exclusive group of sculptors who were receiving royal commissions for the statuary of the new gardens of Versailles.

Pierre Puget still possessed several blocks of fine marble from Genoa, In 1671 he sent to Colbert designs for two large-scale statues, Milon of Croton and the bas-relief Alexander and Diogenes.

Pierre Puget was occupied with his tasks for the city of Marseille, and did not begin work until 1672.

The impatient Colbert wrote to Pierre Puget, demanding a report on the statue, and observing that the marble belonged not to Pierre Puget, but to the royal government.

Pierre Puget's Milon of Croton is a monumental work, nearly three meters high, is one of his most dramatic and expressive works.

Pierre Puget responded that he was sixty years old and that he was working with great enthusiasm on his monumental statue of Perseus Andromeda and the bas-relief Alexander and Diogenes.

Pierre Puget designed both the statue and the architecture of the square, which was actually an oval, surrounded by a majestic marble colonnade, to complement the statue.

Pierre Puget remained adamant and declared he would not make the statue until the city square, in an oval shape, was constructed for it.

Pierre Puget made another trip to Versailles to try to persuade the King to accept his project, but the King declined to see him.

The Echevins of Marseille abandoned Pierre Puget and selected a different and little-known sculptor, Clerion, and Pierre Puget was excluded from the project.

The last two works of Pierre Puget were the bas-reliefs Alexander and Diogenes and The Plague of Marseille.

Pierre Puget sculpted a large marble group of the Virgin and Child for the church of Lorgues and created a monumental wooden retable still in place, for Toulon Cathedral.

Pierre Puget was buried in the cemetery of the church of the Convent of the Observance.