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Ship in a Port with a Ruined Obeliskby Pierre Puget
29" x 23" Framed Art Frame
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Pierre Puget (1620 - 1694) was a French engineer, architect, painter, and sculptor. He was born near or at Marseille in France. His dramatic style at times chafed the traditional Classicism of the French court. When he was about 20 years of age he travelled in Italy and was employed by Pietro da Cortona, a muralist, to work on the ceiling decorations of the Pitti Palace in Florence and the Barberini Palace in Rome. From 1643 to 1656, Puget was active in Toulon and Marseille chiefly as a painter, but he also carved massive figureheads for men-of-war. In 1656, Puget received an important sculpture commission for the doorway of the Hôtel de Ville; his caryatid figures there show anguish and a strain that are similar to Michelangelo’s Mannerist works. Puget went to Paris In 1659, and attracted the attention of Nicolas Fouquet who was Louis XIV’s minister. In 1661 Louis XIV fell from power at a time when Puget was in Italy selecting marble for the Hercules commissioned by him. Puget remained in Italy for many years and established a considerable reputation as a sculptor in Genoa. After 1669 the artist spent his life mainly in Marseille and Toulon, where he was engaged in the decoration of ships, sculpture, as well as architectural work. His somewhat arrogant and difficult temperament made him unacceptable to Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who was Louis XIV’s powerful minister, and it was only late in life that he achieved some degree of court patronage. Several years after his death, framed Pierre Puget art are still found in several institutions and also in several of corporate and private collections worldwide.