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James Pradier, also known as Jean-Jacques Pradier ( 1790 - June 4, 1852) was a Swiss-born French sculptor best known for his work in the neoclassical style.Born in Geneva, Pradier left for Paris in 1807 to work with his elder brother, an engraver. He won a Prix de Rome that enabled him to study in Rome from 1814 to 1818. He studied under Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres in Paris. In 1827Events February 20 Battle of Huzaingo February 28 The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad is incorporated, becoming the first railroad offering commercial transportation of both people and freight. March 7 Ellen Turner is abducted The Shrigley Abduction case begins he became a member of the Académie des beaux-artsThe Academie des beaux-arts (Academy of Fine Arts) is a French learned society. It is one of the five academies of the Institut de France. It was created in 1816 as the merger of the: Academie de peinture et de sculpture (Academy of Painting and Sculpture and a professor at the École des Beaux-Artscole des Beaux Arts refers to several art schools in France. The most famous one is located in Paris, in the 6th arrondissement. Until 1897 women were barred from studying there. The Paris school is known as namesake and founding location of the Beaux Art. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Pradier oversaw the finish of his sculptures himself. He was a friend of the Romantic poets Alfred de MussetAlfred Louis Charles de Musset ( November 11, 1810 May 2, 1857) was a French dramatist, poet, and novelist. De Musset was an important figure in the Romantic literary movement. He trained in both law and medicine, but his success was in literature. The ta, Victor HugoVictor Hugo ( February 26, 1802 May 22, 1885) was a French author, the most important of the Romantic authors in the French language. His major works include the novels The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Miserables and a large body of poetry. Life and wo and Théophile GautierPierre Jules Theophile Gautier ( August 31, 1811 October 23, 1872) was a well known French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist and literary critic. He was born in Tarbes in the Hautes-Pyrenees departement in the southwestern region of France, and he wen, and his atelier was a center, presided over by his beautiful mistress, Juliette Drouet , who married Hugo in 1833Events January 3 Britain seizes control of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic. June 6 U. President Andrew Jackson becomes the first President to ride a train. September 29 The infant Isabella II becomes Queen of Spain, under the regency of her mot.
The cool neoclassical surface finish of his sculptures is charged with an eroticism that their mythological themes can barely disguise. At the Salon of 1834, Pradier's Satyr and Bacchante created a scandalous sensation. Some claimed to recognize the features of the sculptor and his mistress, Juliette Drouet. When the prudish government of Louis-Philippe refused to purchase it, Count Anatole Demidoff bought it and took it to his palazzo in Florence. (It has since come back to the Louvre).
Other famous sculptures by Pradier are the figures of Fame in the spandrels of the Arc de Triomphe, Paris, and his twelve Victories inside the dome of the Invalides. Aside from large-scale sculptures Pradier collaborated with Froment-Meurice , designing jewelry in a 'Renaissance-Romantic' style.
He is buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery. Much of the contents of his studio were bought up after his death by the city museum of Geneva.
Pradier has been largely forgotten in modern times. In 1846 Gustave Flaubert said of him, however:
- This is a great artist, a true Greek, the most antique of all the moderns; a man who is distracted by nothing, not by politics, nor socialism, and who, like a true workman, sleeves rolled up, is there to do his task morning til night with the will to do well and the love of his art.
An exhibition, Statues de chair: sculptures de James Pradier (1790-1852) at Geneva's Musée d'art et d'histoire ( October 1985 - February 1986) and Paris, Musée du Luxembourg , February - May 1986) roused some interest in Pradier's career and esthetic.
