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Historical Artist - Jacques Caffieri (1678 - 1755)
Jacques Caffieri was born into a family of metal sculptors and became an important French
bronze caster during Louis XIV’s reign. His good connections with his uncle, Charles Le
Brun who was Louis XIV’s chief designer and painter, helped Caffieri get the position of
Sculptor, Bronze Caster and Chaser for the King’s Palaces. In 1740, Caffieri’s wife
bought royal permit that allowed the couple to gild and cast bronze in the same workshop. Their
son, Philippe joined the business in 1747. Soon they were producing wall lights, furniture
mounts, and chandelier, ornament, and coach designs. Their clients included Queen Marie
Leczsinska, the king’s mistress Madame de Pompadour, and King Louis XV’s daughter,
Madame Elisabeth.
A large proportion of his brilliant achievement as a designer and chaser in bronze and other
metals was executed for the crown at Versailles, Fontainebleau, Marly, Compiègne, Choisy
and the Château de La Muette, and the crown, ever in his debt, still owed him money at his
death. His signature incised in gilt-bronze kept his name alive in the nineteenth century and
gained him an entry in Encyclopaedia Britannica 1911, though the extreme Rococo style
of which he was a consummate master laid his work open to disapproving commentary. Two
monumental gilt-bronze chandeliers in the Wallace Collection, London, bear his signature.
Contemporary French Artists
Art Galleries in France
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