Biography

French sculptor of Italian birth. He was the son of a French father and was naturalized French in 1666. He is first mentioned in connection with decorative sculpture (destroyed 1778) for the Porte Saint-Antoine, Paris, and in 1663 he was received (reçu) as a member of the Académie Royale on presentation of the model (untraced) for an allegorical bust of Joy (marble version, 1680; Versailles, Château). He worked in the Gobelins factory under the direction of Le Brun, then collaborated with Coysevox in the tomb of Mazarin (1689-1692).

He had a successful career in the service of Louis XIV, rapidly becoming one of the most eminent sculptors in later 17th-century France. He concentrated his artistic activities to the decoration of the château of Versailles.