# BOSIO, François-Joseph [View the canonical artist record]() ## Artist - Lifespan: 1768–1845 - Profession: sculptor - School: French ## Biography French sculptor of Monegasque birth. He trained in Paris in the studio of Augustin Pajou in the period 1785-88. He was an officer in the French army in Italy during the Revolutionary wars, but by 1802 he had resigned his commission. He stayed in Italy, presumably studying and practising as a sculptor until his return to Paris in 1807. Thanks to Lorenzo Bartolini he was employed to work on some of the stone bas-reliefs \(1807-10; in situ\) for the Colonne de la Grande Armée in the Place Vendôme, Paris. He was also a portraitist to the imperial family. At that time he produced one of his best portrait busts - that of Empress Josephine \(Dijon\). His first exhibit at the Salon was Cupid Shooting his Arrows \(plaster; untraced\) in 1808. A marble version \(St Petersburg, Hermitage\) was ordered by Empress Josephine. Reminiscent of Giambologna's Mercury, this Neoclassical work was completed in 1812. Louis XVIII made him court sculptor, and Charles X conferred the title baron on him. Of his larger works the most important are the equestrian statue of Louis XIV \(Place de Victoires\); the quadriga \(four-horse chariot\) of the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel; and Hercules Struggling with a Serpent \(garden of the Tuileries\). ## Related artworks - [Aristaeus, God of the Gardens]() - [Bust of Josephine]() - [Hercules Fighting Achelous Transformed into a Serpent]() - [Louis XIV]() - [Marie-Amélie, Queen of the French \(detail\)]() - [Marie-Amélie, Queen of the French]() - [Queen Marie-Amélie]() - [Young Indian Woman Wrapping a Shell-Fringed Band round her Leg]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()