The Algardi Firedogs (French - chenets de l'Algarde) are two small bronze sculptural groups, individually entitled Jupiter holding his thunderbolt, seated on a terrestrial globe supported by three Titans and Juno, Jupiter's wife carried by the winds.
The originals were commissioned as the fronts of andirons or firedogs from the Roman sculptor Alessandro Algardi for Philip IV of Spain by Diego Velázquez in 1650 whilst he was Spanish ambassador to the Italian states, and he ordered four bronzes symbolizing the four elements of the court of Spain. [1] Though they were incomplete on his death and had to be completed by his pupils. He had only completed the first two in a planned set of four before his death and so the other two (Neptune carried by the waters and Cybele carried by the earth) were produced by his children. Philip did not use them as firedogs but as decorative elements for the garden of his Aranjuez Palace.
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Other 17th century foundries produced copies for other royal courts, especially the Juno and Jupiter. For example, a set of these two was delivered to the Palace of Versailles in 1684. Louis XIV placed them in niches in the oval salon, but Louis XV passed them to the marquis de Marigny, director of the Bâtiments du roi, who displayed them in the château de Ménars. After the marquis' death, they were moved to the Louvre in 1795, before being converted to support a pendulum clock at Napoleon's palace of château de Saint-Cloud. The two groups were then moved to the palais des Tuileries, where in 1845 they were part-gilded by Charles Christofle. The Juno is now lost, but the Jupiter is now on display in the Louvre.
Two similar Juno and Jupiter groups were also owned by the Grand Dauphin, initially displaying them in the château de Choisy then from 1695 in the château de Meudon.
Alessandro Algardi was an Italian high-Baroque sculptor active almost exclusively in Rome. In the latter decades of his life, he was, along with Francesco Borromini and Pietro da Cortona, one of the major rivals of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, in Rome. He is now most admired for his portrait busts that have great vivacity and dignity.
The Louvre, or the Louvre Museum, is a national art museum in Paris, France. It is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement and home to some of the most canonical works of Western art, including the Mona Lisa,Venus de Milo, and Winged Victory. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built in the late 12th to 13th century under Philip II. Remnants of the Medieval Louvre fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to urban expansion, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function, and in 1546 Francis I converted it into the primary residence of the French kings.
The Palace of Versailles is a former royal residence commissioned by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about 19 kilometers (12 mi) west of Paris, France.
Jacint Rigau-Ros i Serra, known in French as Hyacinthe Rigaud, was a Spanish-French baroque painter most famous for his portraits of Louis XIV and other members of the French nobility.
Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart de Mortemart, Marquise of Montespan, commonly known as Madame de Montespan, was a French noblewoman and the most celebrated royal mistress of King Louis XIV. During their romantic relationship, which lasted from the late 1660s to the late 1670s, she was sometimes referred to as the "true Queen of France" due to the pervasiveness of her influence at court.
Nicolas Coustou was a French sculptor and academic.
Guillaume Coustou the Elder was a French sculptor of the Baroque and Louis XIV style. He was a royal sculptor for Louis XIV and Louis XV and became Director of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1735. He is best known for his monumental statues of horses made for the Château de Marly, whose replicas now stand in the Place de la Concorde in Paris.
An andiron or firedog, fire-dog or fire dog is a bracket support, normally one of a pair, on which logs are laid for burning in an open fireplace, so that air may circulate under the firewood, allowing better burning and less smoke. They generally consist of a tall vertical element at the front, with at least two legs. This stops the logs from rolling out into the room, and may be highly decorative. The other element is one or more low horizontal pieces stretching back into the fireplace and serving to hold the logs off the bottom of the fireplace. An andiron is sometimes called a dog or dog-iron.
Ercole Ferrata was an Italian sculptor of the Roman Baroque.
Jacques Sarazin or Sarrazin was a French sculptor in the classical tradition of Baroque art. He was instrumental in the development of the Style Louis XIV through his own work as well as through his many pupils. Nearly all his work as a painter was destroyed and is only known through engravings.
André-Charles Boulle, le joailler du meuble, became the most famous French cabinetmaker and the preeminent artist in the field of marquetry, also known as "inlay". Boulle was "the most remarkable of all French cabinetmakers". Jean-Baptiste Colbert recommended him to Louis XIV of France, the "Sun King", as "the most skilled craftsman in his profession". Over the centuries since his death, his name and that of his family has become associated with the art he perfected, the inlay of tortoiseshell, brass and pewter into ebony. It has become known as Boulle work, and the École Boulle, a college of fine arts and crafts and applied arts in Paris, continues today to bear testimony to his enduring art, the art of inlay.
Château de Meudon, also known as the Royal Castle of Meudon or Imperial Palace of Meudon, is a French castle in Meudon, Hauts-de-Seine. At the edge of a wooded plateau, the castle offers views of Paris and the Seine, as well as of the Chalais valley. Located between Paris and Versailles, in the heart of a hunting reserve, the castle has an ideal topography for large gardens.
"... the most beautiful place in the world, both in its layout and in its location. " - J. F. Blondel, Cours d'Architecture ..., 1773, volume 4, p. 132.
The Crouching Venus is a Hellenistic model of Venus surprised at her bath. Venus crouches with her right knee close to the ground, turns her head to the right and, in most versions, reaches her right arm over to her left shoulder to cover her breasts. To judge by the number of copies that have been excavated on Roman sites in Italy and France, this variant on Venus seems to have been popular.
French Renaissance architecture is a style which was prominent between the late 15th and early 17th centuries in the Kingdom of France. It succeeded French Gothic architecture. The style was originally imported from Italy after the Hundred Years' War by the French kings Charles VII, Louis XI, Charles VIII, Louis XII and François I. Several notable royal châteaux in this style were built in the Loire Valley, notably the Château de Montsoreau, the Château de Langeais, the Château d'Amboise, the Château de Blois, the Château de Gaillon and the Château de Chambord, as well as, closer to Paris, the Château de Fontainebleau.
The Furietti Centaurs are a pair of Hellenistic or Roman statues in grey-black marble from Laconia (Greece) sculptures of centaurs based on Hellenistic models. One is a mature, bearded centaur, with a pained expression, and the other is a young smiling centaur with his arm raised. The amorini are missing that once rode the backs of these centaurs, which are the outstanding examples of a group of sculptures varying the motif.
Jean Louis Tocqué was a French painter. He specialized in portrait painting.
Charles-Michel-Ange Challe was a painter, draftsman and French architect.
The Medici lions are a pair of marble sculptures of lions: one of which is Roman, dating to the 2nd century AD, and the other a 16th-century pendant. Both were by 1598 placed at the Villa Medici, Rome. Since 1789 they have been displayed at the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence. The sculptures depict standing male lions with a sphere or ball under one paw, looking to the side.
Don Pedro of Toledo Kissing Henry IV's Sword was originally a painting of 1814 in the Troubador style by the French artist Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, showing the Spanish ambassador Pedro Álvarez de Toledo, 5th Marquis of Villafranca kissing the sword of Henry IV of France in the salle des Caryatides of the Louvre Palace. The 1814 painting is now lost. Between 1819 and 1832, Ingres painted three additional versions of the subject.
The Louis XIV style or Louis Quatorze, also called French classicism, was the style of architecture and decorative arts intended to glorify King Louis XIV and his reign. It featured majesty, harmony and regularity. It became the official style during the reign of Louis XIV (1643–1715), imposed upon artists by the newly established Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture and the Académie royale d'architecture. It had an important influence upon the architecture of other European monarchs, from Frederick the Great of Prussia to Peter the Great of Russia. Major architects of the period included François Mansart, Jules Hardouin-Mansart, Robert de Cotte, Pierre Le Muet, Claude Perrault, and Louis Le Vau. Major monuments included the Palace of Versailles, the Grand Trianon at Versailles, and the Church of Les Invalides (1675–1691).