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Jean Guillaume Moitte

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Portrait of Moitte based on a bust sculpted by Jacques-Édouard Gatteaux

Jean-Guillaume Moitte (11 November 1746, Paris – 2 May 1810, Paris) was a French sculptor.

Life

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Moitte was the son of Pierre-Etienne Moitte. He became the sculptor of Pigalle then Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne. He won the Prix de Rome for sculpture in 1768 with David carrying the head of Goliath in triumph. He then entered the École royale des élèves protégés before a stay at the Rome, though it was cut short due to illness.

He worked for the king's goldsmith Auguste and participated in decorative works for monuments in capital. He was commissioned to produce sculptures of generals who had died in battle such as one of Custine for the musée de Versailles, the tomb of Louis Desaix at Grand Saint-Bernard or that of Leclerc at the Panthéon de Paris. He also designed and sculpted the pediment for the Panthéon during the French Revolution, with the theme of the Fatherland crowning the civil and heroic virtues[1] Moitte and Philippe-Laurent Roland were the main sculptors for the exterior of the hôtel de Salm.

He was a member of the Institut de France, the Légion d'honneur and professor of the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris.

Works

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Herodotus, relief on the west façade of the cour Carrée, palais du Louvre, 1806
Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi (1795), Mougins Museum of Classical Art

Louvre

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Hôtel de Salm, Palais de la Légion d’honneur

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  • Two Renommée, bas-reliefs, stone, main gate
  • Festival of the Pales, bas-relief, stone, at the base of the courtyard
  • Five bas-reliefs and six allegorical statues, stone, corps central quai Anatole-France
  • Ceres, Mars and Diana, terracotta studies for statues on the coupole

Other

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Sources

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  • Simone Hoog, (preface by Jean-Pierre Babelon, in collaboration with Roland Brossard), Musée national de Versailles. Les sculptures. I- Le musée, Réunion des musées nationaux, Paris, 1993.
  • Pierre Kjellberg, Le Nouveau guide des statues de Paris, La Bibliothèque des Arts, Paris, 1988.
  • Catalogue d’exposition, Skulptur aus dem Louvre. Sculptures françaises néo-classiques. 1760 - 1830, Paris, musée du Louvre, 23 mai - 3 septembre 1990.

Notes

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  1. ^ This scheme was suppressed on the Bourbon Restoration and replaced with the present scheme by David d'Angers.
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