{{Short description|French artist (1731–1804)}} thumb|Julien sculpting ''Gladiateur mourant'' ("Dying gladiator"), c. 1778 '''Pierre Julien''' (20 June 1731 – 17 December 1804) was a French sculptor. He studied under Guillaume Coustou the Younger and in 1765 won a Prix de Rome. He later attended the French Academy in Rome before returning to Paris, where on his second attempt he was admitted to the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture. Charles Claude Flahaut, Count of Angiviller, commissioned him to produce life-size sculptures of Jean de La Fontaine and Nicolas Poussin. Another commission from the Count of Angiviller saw Julien create the decorative scheme for a dairy at Rambouillet, designed for Marie-Antoinette. This included a sculpture of the Greek mythological figure Amalthea as well as friezes and medallions.
== Biography == Julien was born on 20 June 1731 in the commune of Saint-Paulien in south-central France.<ref>Worley, para. 1.</ref> He learned under a sculptor named Gabriel Samuel in Le Puy-en-Velay, near Saint-Paulien,<ref>''Benezit'', p. 994.</ref> after Julien's uncle noticed his artistic ability.<ref>Kalnein & Levey, p. 162.</ref> He studied at the École de dessin of Lyon, then entered the Parisian atelier of Guillaume Coustou the Younger.{{cn|date=May 2026}} On 31 August 1765, he received a Prix de Rome for his ''Albinus Offering His Chariot to the Vestals'', a bas-relief depicting a subject from classical antiquity.<ref>''Benezit'', p. 994.</ref> Julien then entered the École royale des élèves protégés, which offered a special course of study under the direction of the painter Louis-Michel van Loo. He was a pensionnaire at the French Academy in Rome, 1768 to 1773, where he was influenced by the tide of neoclassicism that affected his fellow students.{{cn|date=May 2026}}
[[File:Amalthea Julien Louvre CC230.jpg|thumb|right|250px|''Amalthée et la chèvre de Jupiter'' ('Amalthea and Jupiter's goat') by Pierre Julien. Commissioned in 1785 for Marie Antoinette's dairy at Rambouillet]] After this, Julien made his way back to Paris, where he continued working under Coustou.<ref>Kalnein & Levey, p. 163.</ref> He made a marble copy of the so-called ''Cleopatra'', the Vatican's ''Sleeping Ariadne'',<ref>Modern scholars identify this famous reclining figure as ''Ariadne Abandoned'' (Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, ''Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500-1900'' (Yale University Press, 1981), cat. no. 24, pp 184-87).</ref> which remains at Versailles.{{cn|date=May 2026}} He worked on the sculpture for the mausoleum of Louis, ''le Grand Dauphin'' in the cathedral of Sens.{{cn|date=May 2026}} Julien failed in 1776 to be admitted to the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, having submitted his ''Ganymede''; his resultant dejection and indignance prompted him to consider retiring and living in Rochefort, where workers who could create the prows of ships were needed.<ref>Kalnein & Levey, p. 164.</ref> In 1779, Julien successfully made his way into the Académie with his ''Dying Gladiator''.<ref>Kalnein & Levey, p. 164. This sculpture is housed in the Louvre.</ref> When it was exhibited at the Salon of 1779, this work elicited much praise – only sustaining criticism for having overly delicate hands<ref>Kalnein & Levey, p. 164.</ref> – and it caught the eye of Charles Claude Flahaut, Count of Angiviller.<ref>Martin, p. 231.</ref>
Julien received commissions from the Count of Angiviller (director of the Bâtiments du Roi) on behalf of Louis XVI for two sculptures in a suite of life-size depictions of great men of France.<ref>Worley, para. 1</ref> These sculptures were ''Jean de La Fontaine'', produced 1783–1785, and ''Nicolas Poussin'', produced 1789–1804. The latter sculpture represented Poussin in his nightclothes, which were depicted as similar in appearance to the draperies of a Roman toga.<ref>Worley, para. 1</ref> In 1785, the Count of Angiviller commissioned Julien to create the decorative scheme for a dairy at Rambouillet, designed for Marie-Antoinette.<ref>Martin, pp. 223, 232.</ref> The statue ''Amalthea'', which depicted Amalthea, the nurse of Zeus in Greek mythology,<ref>Draper & Scherf, p. 186.</ref> was to be the central artistic element of the dairy; in Michael Levey's judgement, this was "probably always the sculptor's most famous work".<ref>Levey, p. 248.</ref> Julien turns the antique Amalthea into a young woman with full hips, her pose echoing the Venus de' Medici.<ref>Draper & Scherf, p. 186.</ref> The other works Julien created for the dairy were two friezes and six medallions, all of which had classical subjects.<ref>Martin, p. 232.</ref> These bas-reliefs were sold at auction in 1819, but were retrieved by the State in 2005, thanks to a gift from the son of the great dealer-collector Daniel Wildenstein.{{cn|date=May 2026}}
Julien was named one of the original members of the Institut de France in 1795.{{cn|date=May 2026}} Before his death, he became a chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur.<ref>''Benezit'', p. 994.</ref>
==Major works== * ''Gladiateur mourant'',<ref>[http://cartelfr.louvre.fr/cartelfr/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=4310 Illustration]</ref> marble, 1779, Musée du Louvre. * ''Ganymède versant le nectar à Jupiter changé en aigle'',<ref>[http://cartelfr.louvre.fr/cartelfr/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=4317 Illustration]</ref> marble group, 1776–1778, Paris, musée du Louvre * ''Jean de La Fontaine'',<ref>[http://cartelfr.louvre.fr/cartelfr/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=2520 Illustration]</ref> marble, 1783-85. Musée du Louvre * ''Nicolas Poussin'',<ref>[http://cartelfr.louvre.fr/cartelfr/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=2534 Illustration]</ref> marble, 1789 - 1804. Musée du Louvre * ''Nicolas Poussin'' <ref>[http://cartelfr.louvre.fr/cartelfr/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=2472 Illustration],</ref> terracotta sketch model, about 1787 - 1788. Musée du Louvre * '' Amalthée et la chèvre de Jupiter'',<ref>[http://cartelfr.louvre.fr/cartelfr/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=28408 Illustration]</ref> marble group, 1787 for the ''Laiterie'' at Rambouillet. Laiterie de la Reine at Rambouillet * ''La Jeune fille à la chèvre'',<ref>[http://cartelfr.louvre.fr/cartelfr/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=2475 Illustration]</ref> terracotta statuette, 1786. Musée du Louvre * ''Sainte Geneviève rendant la vue à sa mère'',<ref>[http://cartelfr.louvre.fr/cartelfr/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=2490 Illustration]</ref> terracotta bas-relief, 1776. Musée du Louvre
==Notes== <!--This article uses the Cite.php citation mechanism. If you would like more information on how to add references to this article, please see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cite/Cite.php --> {{Reflist}}
== References == * ''Benezit Dictionary of Artists. Volume 7: Herring – Koornstra'', s.v. Julien, Pierre, Paris, Editions Gründ, 2006. {{ISBN|270003077X}}. * Draper, James David, and Guilhem Scherf, ''Playing with Fire: European Terracotta Models, 1740–1840'', New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003. {{ISBN|1588390993}}. * Kalnein, Wend Graf, and Michael Levey, ''Art and Architecture of the Eighteenth Century in France'', Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1972. {{ISBN|0140560378}}. * Levey, Michael, ''Painting and Sculpture in France: 1700–1789'', New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1972. {{ISBN|0300064942}}. [https://archive.org/details/paintingsculptur0000leve/page/n3/mode/2up Internet Archive]. * Martin, Meredith, ''Dairy Queens: The Politics of Pastoral Architecture from Catherini de' Medici to Marie-Antoinette'', Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, Harvard University Press, 2011. {{ISBN|9780674048997}}. * Worley, Michael Preston, "Julien, Pierre", in ''Grove Art Online'', Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005. {{doi|10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T045309}}.
==Further reading== *Michael Preston Worley, 2003. ''Pierre Julien: Sculptor to Queen Marie-Antoinette''. The first modern monograph. *Exhibition Catalogue. Gilles Grandjean and Guilhem Scherf. "Pierre Julien 1731-1804". Le Puy-en-Velay, France: Musée Crozatier, 2004.
==External links== *[http://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15324coll10/id/59328/rec/1 ''Europe in the age of enlightenment and revolution''], a catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Julien (see index) *[http://www.artnet.com/library/04/0453/T045309.asp ''Grove Dictionary of Art''] on-line excerpts * {{FrenchSculptureCensus}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Julien, Pierre}} Category:1731 births Category:1804 deaths Category:People from Haute-Loire Category:18th-century French sculptors Category:French male sculptors Category:Prix de Rome for sculpture Category:18th-century French male artists Category:Members of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture