Pierre-Nolasque Bergeret
French, 1782 - 1863
French, 1782-1863
(b Bordeaux, 30 Jan 1782; d Paris, 21 Feb 1863). French painter, printmaker and designer. He first trained with Pierre Lacour the elder (1745–1814) in Bordeaux and on going to Paris studied with François André Vincent and then Jacques-Louis David. While a pupil of David, he became friendly with both François-Marius Granet and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Bergeret played a major role in introducing lithography into France, with prints after Poussin and Raphael: his lithograph Mercury (1804), after Raphael’s fresco in the Villa Farnesina, Rome, was one of the earliest examples of the technique. He also contributed greatly to Napoleonic propaganda by designing medals, extravagant pieces of Sèvres porcelain and, most important, the decoration of the Vendôme Column (1806–11; Paris, Place Vendôme) to satisfy Napoleon’s desire for a copy in Paris of Trajan’s Column in Rome. Bergeret was responsible for designing the bas-reliefs on the Vendôme Column, which record the campaigns of 1805 and 1806 (Austerlitz) in the way that those on Trajan’s Column record the Dacian Wars. It was destroyed in 1814, replaced in 1833 and again in 1863, before being demolished by the Communards in 1871. It was restored in 1875.
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