LEGROS (Le Gros), Pierre, the Younger. - French sculptor, b. in Paris on 12 Nov. 1666, d. in Rome on 3 May 1719. Son of the sculptor Pierre L., who worked in the park of Versailles, he received his first training from his father. A pupil from 1690 to 1695 at the French Academy in Rome, he settled there afterward, residing there until his death, except for an interval of two years, between 1713 and 1715, when he went to France.

A typical representative of the exuberant Baroque taste, he sought pathetic effects through the intense movement of the masses and the liveliness of the expressions. The majority of his works are in Rome; the best known are: La religione che castiga l'eresia (1695-99), in the church of the Gesù to the right of the altar of St. Ignatius; the statue of St. Stanislaus Kostka on his deathbed, in his room near the church of St. Andrew at the Quirinal; the sepulchral monument of Card. G. Casanate (1708) and the grandiose statues of the Apostles Thomas and Bartholomew in the basilica of St. John Lateran. His masterpiece, the statue of St. Ignatius with three silver angels for the church of the Gesù, is unfortunately lost, having been melted down at the end of the 18th century to pay the contributions that weighed on the Papal State under the Treaty of Tolentino.

Some of his works went to France, e.g., the fine details of the mausoleum of the Duke of Bouillon at Cluny. Among his decorative architectural works, the most celebrated was the catafalque designed in 1711 in the church of St. Louis of the French in Rome for the funeral of the Grand Dauphin of France.

LEGROS, PIERRE - Statue of St. Thomas (ca. 1710) - Rome, Basilica of St. John Lateran.(phot. Anderson)

Bibliography2 works

BIBL.: S. Lami, Dictionnaire des sculpteurs de l'Ecole Française sous le règne de Louis XIV, Paris 1906, pp. 301-303 (with a complete list of the works); F. Noack, s. v. in Thieme-Becker, XXII, pp. 576-77.

Witold Wehr

@incollection{ec7_legros_le_gros_pierre_il_giova, author = {Wehr, Witold}, title = {Legros (Le Gros), pierre, il giovane}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VII}, pages = {1082--1083}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1951}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/legros-le-gros-pierre-il-giovane} }

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Legros (Le Gros), Pierre, the Younger

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