Pierre Puget 1620-1694

See the image in its page

Four volumes, 1744 pages, no less than 8.5 kilos! Obviously, you can’t reduce an art book to figures, but these are so impressive that they deserve to be mentioned here. The work published by Editions Faton on the sculptor, painter and architect Pierre Puget (he signed in this way, though not always in the same order) is a sum on which several good fairies must have worked.
While the author, German art historian Klaus Herding, who died accidentally at the age of 79, is of course the author, tribute must also be paid to those who ultimately enabled this book, not fully finalised at the time of his death, to be published. Firstly, Geneviève Bresc-Bautier, former director of the sculpture department at the Louvre, who did a considerable amount of work revising and generally correcting the book and, of course, in particular the most important part devoted to sculpture. Arnauld Brejon de Lavergnée and Nicolas Schwed also, for the painted works and the drawings respectively.

1. Pierre Puget (1620-1694)
Vieille Charité
Marseille
Photo: Alexrk2 (CC BY-SA 4.0)

See the image in its page

Historiography has often compared Pierre Puget to Michelangelo, as he was a sculptor, architect and painter all at the same time, but the book is careful to point out from the outset that this somewhat overwhelming comparison is certainly an exaggeration. For although the artist was indeed all of these things, and although he left at least one masterpiece in the field of architecture, the Vieille Charité in Marseille (ill. 1), it is in sculpture that Puget remains one of the greatest 17th-century artists. Although he practised painting all his life, and although some of his paintings are of very high quality - the Louvre has just acquired one of his masterpieces in this field, the Head of Saint John the Baptist (news item to come) and Marseille in 2008 preempted a Holy Family with a Palm Tree (see the news item of 22/6/08),…