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(b Quebec, Qué., Aug 10, 1764; d Quebec, Qué., June 3, 1839).

Canadian metalworker. He studied at the Petit Seminaire du Québec from 1778 to 1780 and began his apprenticeship c. 1780 in the silversmith’s shop of his elder brother, Jean-Nicolas Amiot (1750–1821); the tradition that he was apprenticed to François Ranvoyzé is unfounded. In 1782 he travelled to Paris to complete his training and remained there for five years, supported by his family. He absorbed the Louis XVI style, then popular in France, and after his return to Quebec in 1787 he set up a workshop to introduce this into Canada.

Much of Amiot’s work was for the Church, reworking traditional forms in the Louis XVI style. In a sanctuary lamp of 1788 for the church at Repentigny he elongated the standard shape and decorated it with a balanced arrangement of Neo-classical designs. After 1800 his work became formulaic and less innovative, though there are such notable exceptions as the chalice (...

French family of gold- and silversmiths. Robert-Joseph Auguste (b 1723; d ?1805) became a master in 1757 after an apprenticeship that included work for Louis XV. His repertoire was unusual in that it embraced both silver tableware and gold objects of vertu; the latter includes four gold boxes made between 1762 and 1763, and 1769 and 1771 (Paris, Louvre; New York, Met.; London, V&A; Althorp House, Northants). In 1775 he received payment for the royal crown and other regalia (destr.) made for the coronation of Louis XVI in 1774. The majority of his work in silver is tableware and includes partial or complete services for the courts of Denmark (Copenhagen, Kon. Saml.) and Russia (St Petersburg, Hermitage) and for Gustav Filip Creutz of Sweden (1775–6; Stockholm, Kun. Slottet). He also made a service for George III of England (1776–85; Paris, Louvre). Auguste’s style is characterized by a light and graceful Neo-classicism, in which festoons and figures of children as handles or finials are prominent....

(b Lacochère, Orne, April 29, 1764; d Paris, March 26, 1843).

French cabinetmaker and silversmith. The silver and silver-gilt produced in his workshop rivals that of his contemporaries Henri Auguste and Jean Baptiste Claude Odiot. By 1789 Biennais had established himself at 283, Rue Saint-Honoré, Paris, as a cabinetmaker and tabletier (a dealer in and maker of small objects). After 1797 Biennais, no doubt encouraged by the dissolution of the guild system, expanded his business to include the manufacture of silver. During the Consulate Biennais became Napoleon’s personal silversmith, although he may have provided Napoleon with silver as early as 1798, when it is said that he supplied him with a nécessaire de voyage prior to his Egyptian campaign (1798–1801) and trusted him to pay for it on his return.

Biennais produced large amounts of silver for Napoleon and his family, including, in 1804, the crown and sceptre for his coronation and a number of nécessaires of different types, remarkable for the combination of forms of varying shapes and sizes that are ingeniously accommodated in a restricted space. One (...

Italian family of gem-engravers and medallists. Giuseppe Cerbara (b Rome, 15 July 1770; d Rome, 6 April 1856) was the son of Giovanni Battista Cerbara (b Rome, 1748; d Rome, 1811) and was one of the best-known gem-engravers and medallists working in Rome in the 18th century and the early 19th. His artistic achievements brought him many honours: in 1812 he was elected Fellow of the Accademia di S Luca, in 1815 Fellow of the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna and in 1825 Fellow of the Royal Academy of Fine Art of Antwerp. In 1831 he was elected to the Congregazione dei Virtuosi del Pantheon and in 1834 to the Accademia Fiorentina di Belle Arti. From 1822 he held the post of Incisore Camerale to the papal mint with Giuseppe Girometti; the artists were responsible for producing a medal on alternate years. Appointed Incisore Particolare dei Sommi Pontefici by ...

English family of silversmiths, industrialists, collectors, and patrons, of French origin. The family originated from the town of St Pierre on the Ile d’Oléron off La Rochelle. They arrived in London a few years after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, and between 1708 and 1780 three generations of Courtauld silversmiths were registered at the Goldsmiths’ Company. Augustine Courtauld (c.1686–c. 1751) was apprenticed to Simon Pantin in 1701 and, after becoming a freeman of the Goldsmiths’ Company in 1708, he started a business as a plateworker in Church Court, off St Martin’s Lane in London. The majority of his work is of high quality, for example a silver tea-table (1742; St Petersburg, Hermitage) and the state salt of the Corporation of the City of London (1730; London, Mansion House). Augustine’s brother Pierre Courtauld (1690–1729) registered a mark in 1721...

[Du Plessis; Duplessy.]

French family of goldsmiths, bronze founders, sculptors and designers, of Italian descent. Due to the similarity in name, there has been some confusion between father and son and the attribution of their work; they are now generally distinguished as Duplessis père and Duplessis fils. Jean-Claude Chambellan Duplessis [Giovanni Claudio Chiamberlano] (b Turin, ?1690–95; d Paris, 1774) practised as a goldsmith in Turin before his marriage in 1720 and probably worked for Victor Amadeus II. He moved with his family to Paris c. 1740, perhaps encouraged there by Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier. In 1742 he was commissioned by Louis XV to design and make two large, bronze braziers, presented to the Turkish ambassador Saïd Mahmet Pasha (e.g. in Istanbul, Topkapi Pal. Mus.). From c. 1748 until his death he was employed at the porcelain factories of Vincennes and Sèvres as a designer of porcelain forms and supplier of bronze stands. He also supervised and advised craftsmen. In ...

(b Paris, Nov 5, 1730; d Paris, July 10, 1819).

French medallist, son of Jean Duvivier. He studied at the Académie, winning prizes in 1744, 1746 and 1756. He succeeded his father as Medal Engraver to the King in 1764 and exhibited at the Salon from 1765 onwards. In 1772 he was appointed Engraver-General of French coinage and in 1776 a member of the Académie. During this period Benjamin engraved a large number of medals, both for the government and for provincial estates, towns and companies. From 1781 to 1789 he was also commissioned to produce a series of medals commemorating the American War of Independence, notably George Washington before Boston (1786; e.g. London, BM), which exemplifies his move towards realism, and the Storming of the Tuileries (1792; e.g. London, BM), which shows a less successful move towards Neo-classicism. Duvivier did his best to win favour with the Revolutionary authorities in France. His medal celebrating Louis XVI’s arrival in Paris (...

French family of bronze-founders. Etienne Forestier (b Paris, c. 1712; d Paris, 1768), who became a master bronze-founder in 1737, supplied bronze furniture mounts to Jean-François Oeben, André-Charles Boulle and Gilles Joubert. He cast Jean-Claude Chambellan Duplessis’s models for bronzes on the Bureau du Roi by Oeben and Jean-Henri Riesener (1769; Paris, Louvre). The Forestiers feature in the accounts of the Bâtiments du Roi from 1755 until the Revolution. After Etienne’s death his widow and sons Etienne-Jean Forestier and Pierre-Auguste Forestier (b Paris, 1755; d Paris, 1835) continued the Parisian bronze-founding business from a workshop in the Rue Ste Avoie, Etienne-Jean having become a master in 1764. Their customers included Louis-François de Bourbon, Prince de Conti. The Forestiers also appear frequently, particularly from 1784 to 1788, in the accounts of the Garde Meuble de la Couronne under the directorship of the sculptor Jean Hauré, regarding bronzework for King ...

(b Rodez, Aveyron, Oct 25, 1777; d Paris, May 4, 1858).

French sculptor and medallist. He trained in Paris as a goldsmith with Jean Baptiste Claude Odiot before turning to the engraving of medals; about 1808 he joined the workshop of the gem-engraver and medallist Romain-Vincent Jeuffroy. In 1819 he showed his first work of sculpture, a marble statue in Neo-classical style of Cupid Testing his Arrows (untraced), at the Paris Salon. In 1823 he became medal-engraver to Charles X, and he remained a prolific engraver of commemorative and portrait medallions throughout his life. He competed unsuccessfully in the competition (1829) for allegorical sculpture for the pediment of the church of the Madeleine, Paris. That same year, however, he received an official commission for two seated marble statues representing the Power of the Law and Universal Suffrage for the courtyard of the Chambre des Députés, Palais Bourbon, Paris; these ponderous and academic works were not put in place until ...

[Gil y PérezGerónimo Antonio]

(b Zamora, Spain, Nov 3, 1731; d Mexico City, April 18, 1798).

Spanish printmaker, medallist, and type designer, active in Spain and Mexico. He was one of the first students at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de S Fernando in Madrid (founded 1752), which awarded him a pension to train as a medallist from 1754 to 1758 under Spain’s Engraver General, Tomás Francisco Prieto (1726–82). In 1760 the academy named Gil Académico de Mérito for his medal-engraving skills.

Upon completing his studies, Gil briefly served as drawing instructor at the S Fernando academy but worked principally making copperplate engravings, letter press type, and medals. He was a frequent contributor to luxury books sponsored by the Real Academia de Historia and the S Fernando academy, including the so-called prince’s edition of Don Quixote (1780) and Antigüedades árabes de España (1787). He spent more than 15 years designing type for the Real Biblioteca, and was credited by his peers with rescuing the Spanish type-making industry. The finest works he carried out in Spain included the engraved illustrations for ...

(b Bar-sur-Aube, bapt Jan 13, 1732; d Paris, June 8, 1813).

French bronze-caster and gilder. He became a master gilder and chaser in Paris on 14 April 1758 and took over the establishment and married the widow of his employer, François Ceriset, a modest craftsman. He then worked under the sign of the ‘Boucle d’Or’. On 7 November 1767 he received the warrant of ‘Doreur Seul Ordinaire des Menus Plaisirs du Roi’, signed by the Duc d’Aumont (d 1782), one of his most important patrons. His reputation as the most eminent bronzeworker and gilder in the reign of Louis XVI was established during his lifetime. Many of the bronze pieces produced during this period were thought to have been made by Gouthière, but some of the most important works have been reattributed to Pierre-Philippe Thomire and François Rémond on the basis of documentary evidence. Louis XVI acquired for his private museum 20 of the 34 pieces by Gouthière that were in the Aumont collection, while three of them were bought by ...

(b Ludlow, Salop, 1722–3; d 1801).

English goldsmith. In 1738 he was apprenticed to the Huguenot goldsmith Peter Archambo. He first entered a mark at Goldsmiths’ Hall, London, in 1745, when he gave his address as Piccadilly, London, and became a freeman of the Goldsmiths’ Company in 1746. Some of Heming’s work is distinctly French in character, and this may be due to the influence of Archambo, seen for example in a pair of Neo-classical candlesticks (1769; New York, Met.). Nevertheless, Heming used an eclectic range of sources, from the designs for silver in Eléments d’orfèvrerie (1748) by Pierre Germain (Heming’s trade card depicts a ewer designed by Germain) to A New Book of Ornaments (1752) by Matthias Lock and Henry Copland (c. 1706–53). The curving table-feet depicted in the latter appear on Heming’s épergnes.

Heming was an influential and highly regarded goldsmith. In 1760 he was appointed Principal Goldsmith to ...

(b Maastricht, May 20, 1784; d Rome, March 3, 1836).

Flemish sculptor. He gave up his apprenticeship as a goldsmith in Venlo to attend the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He then went to Hamburg and subsequently stayed in St Petersburg between 1806 and 1814, where he probably trained with the Antwerp sculptor Joseph Camberlain (1756–1821). In 1814 he returned to the Low Countries and spent several months at Anne-Louis Girodet’s studio in Paris, where he exhibited at the Salon of 1819. In the same year he went to Rome, where his terracotta St Sebastian Martyr (sketch in Brussels, Mus. A. Mod.) won the first prize in a competition organized by Antonio Canova. During this period he began working in the studio of Bertel Thorvaldsen, whose pupil and assistant he became. From the beginning of the 1820s in his numerous variations on the theme of the Diskobolos (plaster; examples in Brussels, Mus. A. Mod.), Kessels demonstrated his devotion to Classical and Hellenistic sculpture as interpreted by Thorvaldsen according to the doctrines of Johann Joachim Winckelmann. Among his numerous classically minded patrons was ...

Italian family of die-engravers and medallists. (Carlo Domenico) Lorenzo Lavy (b Turin, 11 Aug 1720; d Turin, 20 Jan 1789) was employed at the Royal Mint in Turin from 1750, becoming engraver in 1763. His main work, 77 struck medals for a series of the House of Savoy (1757–73; Turin, Mus. Civ. A. Ant., and Naples, Capodimonte) commissioned by Charles-Emanuel III, King of Sardinia (reg 1730–73), was done in a typically dry, conventional 18th-century die-engraver’s manner, with classicized allegorical reverses and without any particular distinction. His son Carlo Michele Lavy (b Turin, April 1765; d Turin, 6 Dec 1813) was appointed to the Royal Mint at Turin in 1789 but in 1801 was replaced by his brother Amadeo (Domenico Sotero) Lavy (b Turin, 22 April 1777; d Turin, 10 Oct 1864) as die-cutter to the new mint established under the Cisalpine Republic. In addition to designing and cutting the dies for coins of the Turin mint, Carlo Michele Lavy produced several medals designed by ...

(b Warsaw, Aug 10, 1797; d Czorków, March 15, 1867).

Polish goldsmith. He was the son of an immigrant Saxon surgeon and a daughter of a Warsaw goldsmith, Anna Dorota Bandau (c. 1775–after 1842). He was initially apprenticed to the Warsaw goldsmith, Jan Maciej Schwartz (1772–1828), and later travelled throughout Europe on his apprenticeship journey. After his return to Poland he executed his masterpiece at his teacher’s workshop and opened his own workshop in Warsaw in 1828. He obtained numerous awards and developed his workshop into a large enterprise, employing up to 50 people, including professional artists. The majority of products, however, were designed, and many made personally, by him (examples, Warsaw, Mus. Hist. City). Malcz’s early wares exhibit Empire style features; his works include table services, candelabra and liturgical vessels. He later produced items in the revival styles, especially the Rococo Revival, and, towards the end of his life, his work became more eclectic. In ...

Irish family of medallists. William Mossop (b Dublin, 1751; d Dublin, 28 Jan 1805) trained as a die-sinker in Dublin and made button and seal dies for the Dublin Linen Board before turning his attention to medals. His first medal, portraying the actor Thomas Ryder (silver, bronze and gilt bronze, 1782; see Brown, no. 242), is an accomplished piece, especially given Mossop’s lack of training in this field. In the 1790s he worked for the Dublin firm of Camac, Kyan & Camac, cutting dies for its copper halfpenny. He also produced dies for seals and worked in ivory and precious stones. Some of his medal designs are borrowed, but many are original works. His Cunningham medal (gold, silver and bronze, 1776; see Brown, no. 267), an award given by the Royal Irish Academy and portraying its founder James Caulfeild, 1st Earl of Charlemont, is one of the finest of Irish medals. His son ...

(b Biberach an der Riss, nr Ulm, March 21, 1705; d St Petersburg, Oct 27, 1763).

German gem-engraver and medallist. He trained as a goldsmith in Biberach and then learnt seal- and gem-engraving in Berne. In 1730 he travelled to Venice to work as a seal-engraver. In 1732 the antiquary Baron Philipp von Stosch set him to copying ancient carved gems in Florence. To improve his skill, Natter drew after the Antique at the Accademia di San Luca in Rome, developing a style based on Classical models that was to become characteristic of his gem- carving, an example of which is his cornelian bust of Livia as Ceres (c. 1730; London, V&A). He also became one of the earliest representatives of the Neo-classical medal style. At the end of the 1730s he moved to London, where he produced several noteworthy medals, such as the portrait bust of Sir Robert Walpole (silver, copper and lead, 1741; London, BM). In 1743 the Danish Court invited him to Copenhagen, where he carved a number of gems, among which were the portrait busts in chalcedony of ...

(b June 8, 1763; d May 23, 1850).

French silversmith and cabinetmaker. He was a member of a prominent family of silversmiths active from the early 18th century. He became a master in 1785. The only surviving work by him dating from before the French Revolution (1789–95) is a coffee urn (Monticello, VA, Jefferson Found.) designed and commissioned by Thomas Jefferson. Odiot’s career as a silversmith essentially began in 1802 when he was awarded a gold medal in the third Exposition de l’Industrie in Paris. He executed a travelling service (c. 1795–1809) for Napoleon and a large table service (1798–1809; Munich, Residenz) for Maximilian I of Bavaria (1756–1825). Odiot’s major work dates from c. 1809 after the bankruptcy of the silversmith Henri Auguste family, whose models, tools and designs he purchased. Odiot’s most complex work was a set of dressing-table furniture made for Empress Marie Louise in 1810 (destr. 1832) and the cradle for the ...

(b Canisy, nr Saint-Lô, 1711; d Paris, 1789).

French bronze-caster. He entered his apprenticeship at a late stage and became a master bronze-caster and chaser in Paris on 17 January 1745. From 1764 to 1775 he worked with his nephew, Jean-Baptiste Osmond (1742–after 1790). Robert Osmond was one of the most prolific bronzeworkers of his time and was equally successful in both the Louis XV and the Neo-classical styles, although he rejected the extreme forms of both. His works were highly valued by the connoisseurs of his day and were distributed by clockmakers and marchands-merciers. Although Osmond made all types of furnishing objects, the only extant works are clocks. He specialized in clock cases in the Louis XV style and Louis XVI style, including one depicting the Rape of Europa (Malibu, CA, Getty Mus.) in the Louis XV style and one with a movement by Robert Robin. Two important Neo-classical examples are a vase with lions’ heads (examples in Chantilly, Mus. Condé; Cleveland, OH, Mus. A.) and a cartel-clock with ribbonwork (examples in Stockholm, Nmus.; Paris, Mus. Nissim de Camondo). A remarkable clock decorated with a globe, cupids and a ...

Hungarian family of goldsmiths. The most well-known member was József Prandtner (i) (b before 1783; d 18 Dec 1819). In 1783 he was apprenticed to the master goldsmith János Schwager. In 1791 he married Schwager’s daughter and later inherited the workshop. His elegant Empire-style works with minimal decoration are marked with his surname or his initials JP. After his death his widow managed the workshop. ...