Artiste : ANTIQUITES
PIERRE-JOSEPH CHARDIGNY (1794–1866) – BAS-RELIEF – ‘NAPOLEON AT AUSTERLITZ’
Bas-relief in gilded brass, embossed and chiselled – depicting ‘Napoleon at Austerlitz’ after the painting by Gros.
The illegitimate son of the sculptor Barthélémy-François Chardigny, he was recognised on 9 November 1810 in Marseille by a declaration made by Marie Rose Demongé, born on 5 December 1767 in Puymichel (Basses-Alpes). A pupil of his father until 1813, he was admitted on 15 September 1814 to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where his teachers were François Joseph Bosio and Pierre Cartellier. Elected a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris on 2 December 1819, he made his debut at the Salon in 1819 with a series of medals and two bas-reliefs depicting Homer and Belisarius. He moved to Barcelona in 1831 to create a statue of King Ferdinand VI for the city. A copy was cast for the city of Granada in 1835.
He returned to France and was appointed secretary of the Free Society of Fine Arts of Marseille for the year 1833.
In 1836, he submitted a design for a crown to be placed atop the Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile in Paris.
In 1838, following a bankruptcy ruling, he left for London to escape a sentence. During his stay in London, he worked as a teacher, was director of an art school, and exhibited a medallion at the Royal Academy.
On his return to France, he exhibited the busts of Juno and Innocence. In 1847, he created a bronze bust of the mechanical engineer Henri Gambey, which adorns his grave at Père-Lachaise Cemetery. In 1848, he produced a plaster medallion of Joseph Réattu, which was exhibited at the Salon. Three copies of this medallion were produced: they are housed in Paris at the Louvre Museum, at the Réattu Museum in Arles and at the Palais Longchamp in Marseille. He then worked at the Louvre Palace on the restoration of the Galerie d’Apollon under the supervision of Félix Duban.
In 1855, he made a further trip to Spain, staying in Granada, from where he sent a marble bust of the Virgin Mary for the 1855 Universal Exhibition in Paris at the Palais de l’Industrie. He submitted his two terracotta groups, *Satyr and Bacchante* and *Mercury and Chione*, to the 1866 Salon.
He died in Paris at Necker Hospital on 22 April 1866.
Price €2,450
Ref 227