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François Joseph Bosio | Neoclassical sculptor

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Baron François Joseph Bosio (19 March 1768 - 29 July 1845) was a French sculptor who achieved distinction in the first quarter of the nineteenth century with his work for Napoleon and for the restored French monarchy.
Born in Monaco, Bosio was given a scholarship by prince Honoré I to study in Paris with the eminent sculptor Augustin Pajou.
After brief service in the Revolutionary army he lived in Florence, Rome and Naples, providing sculpture for churches under the French hegemony in Italy in the 1790s.


He was recruited by Dominique Vivant in 1808 to make bas-reliefs for the monumental column in the Place Vendôme in Paris and also to serve as portrait sculptor to Emperor Napoleon I and his family.
It was in this capacity that he produced some of his finest work, notably marble portrait busts of the Empress Josephine, which was also modelled in bisque Sèvres porcelain, and of Queen Hortense (about 1810), which was also cast in bronze by Ravrio.

Louis XVIII made Bosio a Knight of the Order of Saint Michael in 1821 and appointed him premier sculpteur du Roi.
In 1828, Bosio saw his grandiose equestrian sculpture of Louis XIV erected in the Place des Victoires in Paris and was made an Officer of the Légion d'honneur.
He was made a baron by Charles X of France in 1825.
Though under Louis-Philippe he was stripped of his titles, he continued to receive official commissions, as the ablest portrait sculptor in Paris, and created the statue of Napoleon for the Column of the Grande Armée in 1840 under Napoleon III.
He died in Paris.








Apart from the imperial busts and the statue of Louis XVI, other important works included the quadriga of the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel and the statue of Hercules fighting Acheloos transformed into a snake in the Louvre.
Many of his most important sculptures and statues can today be found in the Louvre museum in Paris.

The Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel is a triumphal arch in Paris, France. It is located on the Place du Carrousel, just to the west of the Louvre**.
It was originally surmounted by the famous horses of Saint Mark's Cathedral in Venice, captured by Napoleon, but these were returned to Venice in 1815.
They were replaced by a quadriga sculpted by Baron François Joseph Bosio, depicting Peace riding in a triumphal chariot led by gilded Victories on both sides.