Jacques Sarazin

[
Charles-Nicolas Cochin, c. 1731.] Jacques Sarazin [The artist's sculptures are signed SARAZIN.] or Sarrazin (1588/90 — December 3, 1660) was a French sculptor, who is less known for his paintings. [Jacques Thuillier, "Un peintre oublié: le sculpteur Jacques Sarrazin" "Album Amicorum J.C. Van Gelder" (The Hague) 1973, pp 321-25.] His preparatory drawings in chalk have become more prominent in recent decades. [Barbara Brejon de Lavergnée; and Françoise de La Moureyre, "Drawings by the Sculptor Jacques Sarazin" "Master Drawings" 29.3 (Autumn 1991), pp. 284-300.]

Life

Sarrazin was born in Noyon, France, and went to Paris with his brother, where he trained in the atelier of Nicolas Guillain. He went to Rome in 1610 and worked there under a Frenchman named Anguille. Starting thus, Sarrazin speedily obtained employment from Cardinal Aldobrandini at the Villa Aldobrandini, Frascati, where he won the friendship of Domenichino, with whom he afterwards worked on the high altar of Sant'Andrea della Valle. Sarazin also provided stucco bas-reliefs for S. lorenzo in Miranda.

In 1628 he was called to Paris, where he married a niece of Simon Vouet, whom he had met in Rome [Sarazin's drawings have been mistaken for Vouets, as in the Cholmondeley albums (Brejon de Lavergnée and La Moureyre 1991:286).] and with whom he collaborated closely in the 1630s, in "hôtels particuliers" and châteaux in the Ile-de-France, notably Maisons-Lafitte. Sarazin assembled a large atelier to provide interior and exterior sculptures for the Château de Maisons, for Claude de Bullion at the Château de Wideville and in other private commissions. His usual assistants were Gilles Guérin, Philippe de Buyster and Gérard van Opstal.

His success attracted the notice of Sublet des Noyers, who entrusted to him his best-known work, the decoration of the great portal and the dome of the western facade of the interior court of the Louvre. Sarazin's famous Caryatides of the attic show the profound study of Michelangelo. He now executed many commissions from the Queen, and was an active promoter of the foundation of the Académie. The mausoleum for the heart of the prince de Condé in the Jesuit church of the Rue Saint Antoine was his last considerable work [Lenoir, "Musée des monuments français" 5.] He died on December 3, 1660, while it was in progress, and the crucifix of the altar was completed by his pupil Pierre Le Gros the Elder.

Notes

=Works in the Musée du Louvre, Paris=

*"Temperance", c. 1645, marble.
*"Louis XIV enfant", c. 1643, sculpture

References

*1911
*Digard, Marthe, 1934. "Jacques Sarrazin, son oeuvre, son importance" (Paris).
*Girodie André, "Jacques Sarazin (1592-1660)" (Paris) 1934.

External links

* [http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/s/sarrazin/ Jacques Sarrazin's Temperance] , on the Web Gallery of Art.