Louis Lerambert

Louis Lerambert (Paris, 1620 — 1670) was a French sculptor in a numerous Parisian family of four generations of court artists [His father was Simon, son of the Louis Le Rambert who enjoyed lodgings at the Galeries du Louvre and died in 1614 (Lam).] who in 1637 inherited the court position caring for the Antiquities and Marbles of the King, which had become hereditary in his family. He trained in the atelier of Simon Vouet, recently returned from Rome; there he met the sculptor Jacques Sarazin.

Louis Lerambert received court commissions under Louis XIII and Louis XIV of France in the three current sculptural genres, overmantels and decorative sculpture, portrait busts and tomb figures. Lerambert was received into the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1664. [His reception piece was a terracotta bust of Cardinal Mazarin; a marble version is in the Bibliothèque Mazarine, Paris.] Among the few surviving examples of his non-royal works are stucco decorations in the chapel at the château de Bonnes (later Chamarande), Essone, [ [http://www.chamarande.fr/chateau.html Château de Chamarande] ] executed ca 1660 for the royal secretary Pierre Mérault; allegorical bas-reliefs of "Memory" and "Meditation" for the tomb of Jean Courtin and his wife in Saint-Solenne, Blois, (1660) moved to the cathedral; [ [http://www.patrimoine-de-france.org/oeuvres/richesses-27-8936-68339-P70447-171738.html Tombeau de Jean Courtin] , signed '"Lerambert/f.anno.d./1660"] and holy water stoup of conjoined putti's heads at St-Germain-l'Auxerrois, Paris. [ [http://www.inventaire.culture.gouv.fr/public/mistral/palissy_fr?ACTION=CHERCHER&FIELD_98=AUTR&VALUE_98=Lerambert%20Louis%20&DOM=Tous&REL_SPECIFIC=1 Ministère de la culture] ]

At Versailles

He was among the first generation of sculptors providing sculpture for the château of Versailles, notably for the rustic comedies in stone of the "Petite Commande" of 1664, [Thomas F. Hedin , "The Petite Commande of 1664: Burlesque in the gardens of Versailles" "The Art Bulletin" (December 2001) ( [ On-line text] ).] much of which was eliminated in later, grander garden projects and is known only through the meticulously-kept records of the Bâtiments du Roi and the engravings of Jean Le Pautre. Among his works still at Versailles are a pair of marble sphinxes on the Parterre des Fleurs (1667–8), carved in collaboration with Jacques Houzeau following a model provided by Jacques Sarazin, and six of the fountain basins supported with trios of playing putti, musician, child term figures for the "Parterre d’Eau." [Originally in gilded lead (1669), recast in bronze, 1688).]

Antoine Coysevox, who married his niece, was his most prominent pupil.

Notes

References

*Lami, Stanislas "Dictionnaire des sculpteurs de l'école française du moyen âge au règne de Louis XIV" (Paris) 1898.

External links

* [http://www.insecula.com/contact/A005452.html Insecula: Louis Lerambert]