Louis Royer

Louis Royer (1793–1868), also Lodewyk Royer, was a Flemish sculptor who worked in the Netherlands where he received many commissions from the royal family and for public statues.

He was born in Mechelen where he first studied at the local Academy and from 1810 in the studio of Jan Frans van Geel. After studying in Paris for a year, he went to live in Amsterdam in 1820. At the time what is now present-day Belgium and the Netherlands were united in one kingdom under the rule of the Dutch. In 1823 he was the first sculptor to win the Dutch version of the Dutch Prix de Rome, a prize that was re-instituted by King William I in 1817. The Prix allowed Royer to study in Rome where he came under classicist influences.

He worked in an area close to the Spanish Steps where he must have been in contact with Bertel Thorvaldsen and the studio of Antonio Canova, who was already deceased but whose workshop with his pupils was still operational. While in Rome, Royers experienced financial difficulties because of the problems of the commission which awarded him the Dutch Prix de Rome and the bankruptcy of his patron, the Amsterdam stockbroker A.B. Roothaan. Despite these problems, Royer remained very productive, and only found time to travel once, to Naples. In Rome he sculpted a portrait of his friend, the painter Cornelis Kruseman. He gained a lot of admiration for his portrait of Pope Leo XII, whom he portrayed from life.

In 1827 Royer returned from Rome and settled in The Hague, an important artistic centre after the royal family had moved there from Amsterdam. He was soon appointed court sculptor and he made portraits of all members of the royal family in busts of marble. Shortly afterwards he was also appointed director of the Royal Academy of Art in Amsterdam.

After moving to Amsterdam in 1837, Royer received many public commissions for statues of leading personalities from Dutch history, such as the statues of Rembrandt and Joost van den Vondel in Amsterdam, William the Silent in The Hague and Michiel de Ruyter in Vlissingen. His monumental sculptures of Dutch national heroes gave form to the rising nationalism in the country that had recently recovered its independence after French occupation and wanted to be reminded of its glorious past.

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