Barthélemy Prieur Artwork valuations, appraisals and auction estimates

Barthélémy Prieur was a French sculptor specialized in working with stone and marble who - especially in the final phase of his career - specialized in the mass casting of small bronze sculptures designed directly for collecting (slightly preceding the efforts of the sculptor-bronzest Florentine Antonio Susini with his sculptures based on Giambologna's models). Between 1564 and 1567 he worked at the court of Duke Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy in Turin and, while he was in Italy, it is conceivable that he visited Florence, Milan and Rome. Read the full biography

Barthélémy Prieur was a French sculptor specialized in working with stone and marble who - especially in the final phase of his career - specialized in the mass casting of small bronze sculptures designed directly for collecting (slightly preceding the efforts of the sculptor-bronzest Florentine Antonio Susini with his sculptures based on Giambologna's models). Between 1564 and 1567 he worked at the court of Duke Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy in Turin and, while he was in Italy, it is conceivable that he visited Florence, Milan and Rome. It is attested in Paris in 1571, where, for a cousin of his first patroness, Magdalene of Savoy, he executed two bronze Virtues for the monument to the heart of the constable Anne de Montmorency, her late husband. An inventory drawn up after the death of Prieur's first wife in 1583 reveals his wealth and the range of models he was producing in bronze. Being Protestant, he fled to Sedan, where in 1591 he was appointed king's sculptor by Henry IV. Returning to Paris with the monarch in 1594, he devoted himself to the architectural decoration of the Palais du Louvre, as well as preparing the sculptures for the monument of Henry IV and the queen, Marie de' Medici. A quarter of a century later, another inventory, drawn up after Prieur's own death in 1611, reveals an even wider range of small bronze models being produced: plaster moulds, wax casting models and bronzes, some only partly finished, preserved in the foundry, etc. These included representations of the king and queen (the most famous of which is a group of King Henry IV on horseback defeating his enemies) animals, and classical or genre human figures.