Pierre Louis Prieur

(b Paris, 1732-6; d Paris, 6 May 1795). French sculptor, bronze-caster, designer and engraver. He may have been trained by his cousin JEAN-JOSEPH DE SAINT-GERMAIN. Prieur was accepted as a sculptor in the Acad?mie de Saint-Luc, Paris, in 1765 and became a master bronze-caster and chaser in 1769. In 1766 he collaborated with Victor Louis and Philippe Caffi?ri (ii) on decorations for the Royal Castle, Warsaw, providing many designs (U. Warsaw, Lib.) for furniture and furnishing objects and executing some of them (examples in Warsaw, Royal Castle; Detroit, MI, Inst. A.; Paris, Mus. Nissim de Camondo). With Louis he also took part in the redecoration of the choir of Chartres Cathedral. In 1770, on the occasion of the marriage of the Dauphin (later Louis XVI) to Marie-Antoinette, he produced an exceptional clock on the theme of Peace and Abundance (St Petersburg, Hermitage) from a drawing by Fran?ois Boucher. The clock on the theme of Vigilance (Paris, Louvre) dates from the same period. In 1774 Prieur produced bronze ornaments for the coach used by Louis XVI at his coronation, based on designs by Fran?ois-Joseph B?langer, including four allegorical sculptures that also feature in an engraving by Prieur of 1783. In 1776 he supplied bronzes for two mantelpieces designed for the Palais-Bourbon, Paris, by Claude Billard de Belisard ( fl 1722-90). In 1778 major financial losses due to mishandling of funds forced Prieur to move to the Enclos du Temple, Paris, where he continued to operate as a bronze-caster on a much reduced scale, and where his business was more orientated towards the production of bronze ornament. In the 1780s he also published many engravings of ornament, including seven books of arabesques, vases and designs for furniture, as well as Principes de dessin, six plates of scrolling, foliate friezes. He also provided patterns for wallpapers for the factory of Jean-Baptiste R?veillon. Through both his bronzes and his designs, Jean-Louis Prieur played a leading role in the French Neo-classical movement.

See the Abbreviations for further details.

For the seventeenth-century painter, see Pierre Prieur.

Pierre-Louis Prieur

Pierre Louis Prieur (Prieur de la Marne) (1 August 1756 – 31 May 1827) was a French politician.

Biography

Born in Sommesous (Marne), Prieur practised as a lawyer at Châlons-sur-Marne until 1789, when he was elected to the States-General. He became secretary to the National Constituent Assembly, and the violence of his attacks on the ancien régime won him the pun nickname of Crieur de la Marne ("Shouter of the Marne").

In 1791, he became vice-president of the criminal tribunal of Paris. Re-elected to the Convention, he was sent to Normandy, where he directed bitter reprisals against the supporters of Federalism.

He voted for the death of King Louis XVI, and as a member of the Committees of National Defence and of Public Safety he was despatched in October 1793 to Brittany, where he established the local version of the Reign of Terror. In May 1794 he became president of the Convention. The Thermidorian Reaction drove him into hiding from May 1795 until the amnesty proclaimed in the autumn of that year.

He took no part in public affairs under the Directory, the Consulate or the Empire, and in 1816, after the Bourbon Restoration, he was banished as a regicide.

Prieur died in Brussels in 1827.

References

•  "Prieur de la Marne". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.  This, in turn, gives the following reference:
  • Pierre Bliard, Le Conventional Prieur de la Marne en mission dans l'ouest 1793-1794 d'après des documents inédits (1906).

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