Amphitrite

19th century cast bronze, 23” high

$5,000

Michel Anguier’s work marks the end of Mannerism and the beginning of classical Baroque, which reached its peak with the statuary in the gardens of Versailles, especially under the direction of François Girardon (1628-1715). Trained by his father, a wood sculptor in his native town of Eu, Michel Anguier was apprenticed from 1629 to 1633 in the studio of Simon Guillain (1581–1658) in Paris. He then spent around ten years in Rome, where he worked alongside the greatest masters of Roman Baroque: Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680) and Alessandro Algardi (1598–1680). Anguier assisted Bernini in the production of medallions and bas-reliefs for Saint Peter’s Basilica and collaborated with Algardi on the sculpted decoration for Saint John Lateran. When he returned to Paris, he received commissions from important patrons: around 1649–52 he completed his Seated Hercules for the tomb of the Duc de Montmorency in Moulins. At the request of Anne of Austria, he worked on the decoration of the summer apartments at the Louvre between 1662 and 1667, as well as on a major cycle of reliefs for the church of the Val-de-Grace. He carved a number of stone statues for Nicolas Fouquet’s château at Saint-Mandé and for the gardens of Vaux-le-Vicomte, as well as three stone statues for the Marquis de Seignelay at Sceaux. In 1674, he completed one of his masterpieces: the decoration of the monumental Porte Saint-Denis, a triumphal arch marking the gateway to Paris, executed by Anguier after drawings by Charles Le Brun. At the end of his career, Michel Anguier took a more active role in the Académie des Beaux-Arts, and became its rector in 1671: he delivered a series of lectures in which he addressed subjects of art theory, such as The Union of Art and Nature (1671), The Bas-reliefs of Antiquity (1673), The Way of Representing Deities According to their Temperament (1676), and Aspects of Drawing (1677).