François and Michel Anguier

Who was François and Michel Anguier?

The brothers François Anguier and Michel Anguier were French sculptors, natives of Eu in Normandy.

Their apprenticeship was served in the studio of Simon Guillain. The chief works of François are the monument to Cardinal de Bérulle, founder of the Carmelite order, in the chapel of the oratory at Paris, of which all but the bust has been destroyed, and the mausoleum of Henri II, last duc de Montmorency, at Moulins.

To Michel are attributed the sculptures of the triumphal arch at the Porte Saint-Denis, begun in 1674, to serve as a memorial for the conquests of Louis XIV. A marble group of the Nativity in the church of Val-de-Grâce was reckoned his masterpiece. From 1662 to 1667 he directed the progress of the sculpture and decoration in this church, and it was he who superintended the decoration of the apartments of Anne of Austria in the old Louvre. Nicolas Fouquet also employed him for his château, Vaux-le-Vicomte.

François Anguier died in 1669. Michel Anguier died in Paris in 1686.