Louis Petitot

Who was Louis Petitot?

Louis-Messidor-Lebon Petitot was a French sculptor, who was born and died in Paris. He was the pupil and son-in-law of the sculptor Pierre Cartellier.

Petitot won the Prix de Rome for sculpture and spent his time, 1815–19, at the French Academy in Rome as a pensioner of the King of France, Louis XVIII. On his return to Paris he worked again with Pierre Cartellier, who was engaged in an equestrian statue of Louis XIV, to be erected in the cour d'honneur of Versailles, as part of the celebration of the Bourbon Restoration; at Cartellier's death, only the horse had been cast in bronze. Petitot successfully completed the commission, which was erected in 1817.

In 1822 he completed a commemorative marble bust of Claude de Forbin, which was exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1822 and was purchased for Versailles.

He exhibited a Young Hunter Wounded by a Snake at the Paris Salon of 1827, which was purchased for the Musée du Louvre, and partly on the strength of it, was invited to produce a standing sculpture of Louis XIV, to be cast in bronze and set up in the place Saint-Sauveur, Caen.