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Pigalle received the commission from the city of Reims for the monument to Louis XV, preferred to the aging Lambert-Sigisbert Adam and to Louis-Claude Vassé.
Pigalle set his personal seal upon it by including himself on the monument. Pigalle executed in bronze the king clad in Roman military costume but with arm benevolently extended. This theme of benevolence guided him in the figures below, also of bronze: not the conventional slaves signifying a conqueror, but emblematic figures of mild government and of a contented nation. The latter was symbolized by a citizen who is a portrait of Pigalle. The Citizen is a powerfully modelled figure, which suggests the influence not of the antique, nor Bernini, but Michelangelo. The figure has a brooding, timeless sense which lifts it out of all associations with the allegorical luggage around it, and with the rest of the monument.
The original statue of the king by Pigalle was destroyed in 1792 and replaced in 1818 by a bronze copy, made by Pierre Cartellier in 1818. The sculptures on the pedestal are still by Pigalle.
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