Clodion

orig. Claude Michel

(born Dec. 20, 1738, Nancy, Fr.—died March 29, 1814, Paris) French sculptor. In 1755 he entered his uncle's workshop in Paris, and later he became a student of Jean-Baptiste Pigalle. In 1759 he won the grand prize at the Royal Academy and embarked on a successful career, first in Rome and then in Paris, where he exhibited regularly at the Salon. He excelled at small statuettes and terra-cotta figures of nymphs, satyrs, and groups. After the French Revolution he changed his style to suit the Neoclassical taste for monumentality; he worked on the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel (1805–06) and the Vendôme Column (1806–09).

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