René-Michel Slodtz
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René-Michel Slodtz or Michel-Ange Slodtz (Paris 1705 - 1764) was a French sculptor.
He passed seventeen years at Rome, where he was chosen to execute a statue of St Bruno, one of the best modern works of the class in St Peter's. He was also the sculptor of the tomb of Marquis Capponi in San Giovanni dei Fiorentini.
Other works of his are to be seen at the church of Stan Luigi dei Francesi and at Santa Maria della Scala. After his return to France in 1747, Slodtz, in conjunction with his brothers, Antoine-Sebastien and Paul, produced many decorative works in the churches of Paris, and, though much has been destroyed, his most considerable achievement--the tomb of Languet de Gergy in St Sulpice (commissioned in 1750)--still exists.
Slodtz was, like his brothers, a member of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture. Many particulars of his life are preserved by Charles-Nicolas Cochin, in a memoir and also in a letter to the Gazette littéraire, which was reproduced by Castilhon in the Necrologe of 1766.
Slodtz's father, Sebastien (1615-1726), was also a sculptor, born at Antwerp; he became a pupil of François Girardon and worked mostly under him at Versailles and the Tuileries. His chief works were Hannibal in the Jardin des Tuileries, a statue of St Ambrose in the Invalides, and a bas-relief Saint Louis sending missionaries to India.
See CN Cochin, Mém. fined. (Paris, 1881); Barbet de Jouy, Sculpture moderne du Louvre (Paris, 1856); Duissieux, Artistes français a l'etranger (Paris, 1852).
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
