Sculptor. The son of a locksmith, Pierre studied at the Ecole Gratuite de Dessin, Paris, and then in the studio of Charles-Antoine Bridan and at the Académie Royale. He failed to win the Prix de Rome and began to earn his living modelling decorative motifs for bronze founders. At a time in European history when ancient works were the measure by which all was judged, which was 1801 Pierre obtained wide recognition after exhibiting a plaster version of his statue of Modesty that was based on the free-standing statue of the Capitoline Venus in Rome. At the Bourbon Restoration he was given the commission to do the bronze equestrian statue of King Louis XIV that can be seen in the cour d’honneur of Versailles. His best known work came in 1825 when he was commissioned by Vivant’s close friends Eugène and Hortense de Beauharnais who wanted him to sculpt a monument for the tomb of their mother, the Empress Joséphine, together with the architect Louis Berthault, they sculpted her white marble tomb. Pierre was made a member of institute de France, of the Legion of Honor (1808) and decorated with the Order of St-Michel (1824). Pierre died in Paris and was interred there in the Père Lachaise Cemetery with his wife and daughter. (bio by: Shock)