Statue Spartacus

Foyatier was born into a family of modest means (his father was a weaver and later a farmer at Bezin, a hamlet near Bussières, Loire). While enrolled in a design course in Lyons, he began producing religious figures. In 1817, he entered the Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts in Paris. In 1819 he exhibited his first pieces and, aged 26, was awarded a scholarship for the French Academy in Rome at the Villa Médicis. He created the mold for his model of Spartacus there, and it is widely considered to be his masterpiece. A Royal Command of 1828 for a production of it in marble made him famous. Some of Foyatier’s works have been lost; several were melted down during the Second World War.