Charles-François Lebœuf


Charles-François Lebœuf, called Nanteuil was a French sculptor.

Career

Born in Paris, he studied with Pierre Cartellier at the École des Beaux-Arts, winning the Grand Prix de Rome in Sculpture in 1817 with a gypsum figure of Agis, Dying by His Own Arms. The prize included a period of study at the Villa Medici of the French Academy in Rome, where Nanteuil carved the marble statue Dying Eurydice, which he exhibited in Paris in his highly successful debut at the Salon of 1824. The statue is now in the Musée du Louvre. This work later inspired Auguste Clésinger's Woman Bitten by a Snake.
Nanteuil received many commissions from the French government, including one for a group entitled Commerce and Industry at the French Senate in the Palais du Luxembourg, which was inspired by the first-century sculpture Castor and Pollux. Other commissioned works include a seated statue of Montesquieu and the bronze commemorative statue of General Desaix. His work was also incorporated into the decorations at the Gare du Nord, the Palais Garnier, and the Palais du Louvre.
Nanteuil's most important ecclesiastical works are two pediment sculpture groups in stone, Hommage to the Virgin and the Glorification of Saint Vincent de Paul, which reveal the influence of Italian sculpture of the early Renaissance and of sculptures from Aegina and the Parthenon.
Nanteuil died in Paris.

List of works