Jacques Prou

Jacques Prou (1655–1706) was a French Academic Baroque sculptor, a product of the Academy system overseen by Charles Le Brun. Trained in the Academy school in Paris.[1] he spent four years (1676–80) refining his style at the French Academy in Rome, then returned to Paris to become a member of the team of the Bâtiments du Roi from 1681, providing sculpture for Versailles in the atelier of Jean-Baptiste Tuby, whose daughter he married. He was received as a full member of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1682, presenting as his reception piece a bas-relief of Sculpture consulting Painting over the portrait of Louis XIV, now at the Musée du Louvre, which reveals his concern for surface textures adapted from the dominant art, painting[2] At Versailles he became closely associated in projects for fountains and emblematic decorative sculpture with Antoine Coysevox, notably in the Escalier des princes, the salon opening onto it, and the Salon de la Guerre.[3]

Prou's Bust of Marie Casimire Sobieska (c. 1680), Wilanów Palace in Warsaw.

For Versailles he carved a vase on the theme The Infant Mars, following a design from the office of Jules Hardouin-Mansart.[4] His work for Marly, 1683–84 and 1705, has disappeared.

His marble memorial portrait bust of the recently deceased Philippe de France, duc d'Orléans, only brother of Louis XIV, was exhibited at the Paris salon of 1704.[5]

Notes
  1. He was the son of Jacques Prou or Proust, Parisian menuisier or wood-worker. (Seymour 1952:290, note 22). His Mother was Marie Enguerrand, his aunt Perrine Prou married Mathieu de Lespagnandelle (E.Clause)
  2. (Seymour 1952:290-91). Prou was later made an assistant professor, 1701, and full professor at the Academy in 1704.
  3. Jules Guiffrey, Comptes des Bâtiments du Roi, ii-iv, noted by Seymour 1952:22.
  4. Known through an engraving by Thomassin.
  5. The bust was identified in the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, by Charles Seymour Jr, "A Group of royal portrait-busts from the reign of Louis XIV" The Art Bulletin 34.4 (December 1952, pp. 285-296) p 289ff.

References
  • Lami, S. Dictionnaire des sculpteurs de l'école française du règne de Louis XIV (Paris) 1906, pp 415–17..
  • Jacques Prou in American public collections, on the French Sculpture Census website
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