Guillaume Coustou the Younger

Who was Guillaume Coustou the Younger?

Guillaume Coustou the Younger was a French sculptor.

The son of Guillaume Coustou the Elder and nephew of Nicolas Coustou, he trained in the family atelier and studied at the French Academy in Rome, 1736–39, as winner of the Prix de Rome. He returned to Paris, where he completed the famous "Horse Tamers" commissioned from his father in 1739 for Marly, when the elder Coustou was too infirm to actively carry out the commissions. They were completed and installed in 1745.

He was accepted at the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture and pursued a successful official career, working fluently in styles that ranged from the Late Baroque of his morceau de réception, a Seated Vulcan to the sentimental early neoclassicism of the Ganymede, whose affinities with Roman sculptures of Antinous have been suggested by Michael Worley. He produced portrait busts as well as his religious and mythological subjects.

His most prominent and ambitious official commission was the Monument to the Dauphin for the cathedral of Sens. The elaborate iconography of its somewhat overcharged design was worked up by the artist and connoisseur Charles-Nicolas Cochin.