Guillaume Coustou

Guillaume Coustou the Elder (29 November 1677, Lyon - 22 February 1746, Paris) was a French sculptor and academician. Coustou was the younger brother of French sculptor Nicolas Coustou and the pupil of his mother's brother, Antoine Coysevox. Like his brother, he was employed by Louis XIV and Louis XV.

He won the Colbert prize (Prix de Rome), as had his brother, which gave him a four-year scholarship at the French Academy in Rome; but refusing to submit to the rules of the academy, he soon left it, and according to legend for some time wandered homeless through the streets of Rome, though he soon found work in the atelier of Pierre Legros.

Returning to Paris, he assisted his uncle in executing the monumental equestrian sculptures of Fame and Mercury for Marly—which were to be replaced by his own Horse Tamers. In 1704 he was admitted into the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture; his morceau de reception was Hercule sur le bûcher ("Hercules on the Pyre"), 1704 (now at the Louvre Museum, illustration, left); it displays the dynamic transverse pose and virtuoso carving that academy reception pieces were expected to display. Afterwards he became the academy's director, 1733;

His finest works are the famous group of the "Horse Tamers" (Chevaux de Marly), which reinvent the theme of the colossal Roman marbles of the Horse Tamers in the Piazza Quirinale, Rome. They were commissioned by Louis XV in 1739 and installed in 1745 at the Abreuvoir ("Horse Trough") at Marly. The familiar versions (illustration, left) at the entrance to the Champs-Élysées, Paris are cast reproductions.

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