Nicolas Jacques

(b Reims, c. 1578; d Reims, 1649). Son of (1) Pierre Jacques. He probably trained with his father. Few of his works survive, but his documented commissions include a massive stone statue of Louis XIII, made on the occasion of his coronation in Reims (1610), a wood tabernacle (1626; untraced) for the church of the Carmelite monastery, Reims, and an altar front (1628; untraced) ordered by the equerry Nicolas Thiret for the abbey of Notre-Dame-du-Tr?sor, Normandy. In Reims he sculpted an equestrian statue of Louis XIII (1634) on the pediment of the H?tel de Ville; six stone statues of the Apostles (1636; in situ on the pillars of the choir) for St Maurice; a major stone altar (1637; untraced) in the Augustinian monastery; and the engraved marble epitaph in the Carmelite church of G?rard Siga (1644), a cathedral chaplain. A terracotta statuette (signed and dated 1647; priv. col., see de Traverse and Ronot, p. 30, illus. 3) of the Comte de Toulouse, one of the six secular peers of France, proves that Jacques was requested to provide models for the figural decoration of the silver reliquary of St R?mi, commissioned in 1648 from the Reims goldsmith Antoine Lespicier. (It was destroyed with the tomb in 1793.) In 1648 Jacques undertook various sculptural commissions at St R?mi: the rood screen, porticos (probably including the south portico) and choir enclosures. His son Fran?ois Jacques (b Reims, c. 1628; d Reims, 20 July 1664), together with the master mason Henri Gentillastre, undertook in 1659 the construction of the north portico of the choir of St R?mi; he created a decorative ensemble of marble and jasper that is still in situ. He fell to his death while erecting a figure on the portal of the Carmelite chapel.

Part of the Jacques family

See the Abbreviations for further details.