BONNASSIEUX, Jean-Marie Bienaimé
(b. 1810, Panissières, d. 1892, Paris)

Biography

French sculptor. The son of a cabinet maker from Lyon, Bonnassieux showed talent as a boy and was educated at the École des Beaux-Arts under Augustin-Alexandre Dumont. In 1836 he was the co-winner (with Auguste Ottin) of the Prix de Rome. Bonnassieux subsequently taught at the École, and among his students in the 1880s was the young American Lorado Taft.

His bronze statue of Notre-Dame de France overlooking the town of Le Puy-en-Velay is made from 213 Russian canons taken in the Siege of Sebastopol (1854-1855) and was presented to the public on the 12th of September 1860 in front of 120,000 people.

Bonnassieux is buried at Montparnasse Cemetery.



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