Dutch (active in France)
XVIIth Century
Paris
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Martin Desjardins, born Martin van den Bogaert (1637-1694), was one of the leading sculptors active in France during the reign of Louis XIV. Born in Breda, he trained in Antwerp under the sculptor Pieter Verbruggen before settling in Paris at a young age. There he Frenchified his name and began his career producing decorative stuccowork for prestigious private residences, including the Hôtel Salé and the Hôtel de Beauvais. |
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Desjardins joined the Académie de Saint-Luc in 1661 and was received into the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1671 with the marble relief Hercules Crowned by Glory. His admission marked his entry into the official artistic establishment and led to major commissions for royal residences and institutions, including Versailles and Les Invalides.
His most celebrated achievement was the monumental ensemble commissioned by François d'Aubusson, Duke of La Feuillade, for the Place des Victoires in Paris. Conceived to glorify Louis XIV and his military triumphs, it centred on a colossal gilt-bronze figure of the king crowned by Victory. The statue was destroyed during the French Revolution, while several surviving elements of the monument are now preserved at the Louvre.
Desjardins also produced portraits, funerary monuments, mythological sculpture and representations of the king, including the model for the equestrian monument erected at Lyon. His sculpture combines the discipline and clarity of French classicism with the movement, expressive force and richly worked surfaces inherited from the Flemish Baroque.
Particularly gifted in portraiture and allegorical invention, Desjardins gave marble and bronze figures a vivid physical presence without sacrificing the dignity required by courtly representation. His ability to unite individual observation, monumental scale and political symbolism made him one of the principal interpreters of the visual culture of Louis XIV's reign and an influential figure in the development of late seventeenth-century French sculpture.