Jacques Bachot
Jacques Bachot was a 1493 in the northern French to 1526 Champagne and Lorraine active sculptor of the late Gothic period .
Life
The presence of the artist in Troyes ( Aube ), the then capital of Champagne, one of the most important centers of sculpture of the late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance , is documented from 1493. In 1495 Henri de Lorraine-Vaudémont († 1505), Bishop of Metz , called him to Joinville (Haute-Marne) , whose castle had belonged to his ancestors for centuries. He commissioned Bachot with the execution of two tombs for the already 1163 within the castle complex on the initiative of his ancestor, the Seneschal of the Champagne Gottfried III. Joinville- built collegiate church St. Laurent, in which the graves of his ancestors and relatives were. Jacques Bachot returned to Troyes around 1504/05. There he was named in 1513 as the elected representative of the guild in which the sculptors had come together with the book printers, illuminators, painters, glass painters and silk stickers.
After 1515 he is recorded in Saint-Nicolas-de-Port ( Meurthe-et-Moselle ) near Nancy , where he carried out work on the church and today's basilica of St. Nicolas-du-Port (1481-1544, towers 1550-1560) whose construction, which was not yet completed at the time, was decided on the initiative of the Duke of Lorraine René II († 1508), a grandson of the Bishop of Metz, out of gratitude for his victory over Charles the Bold in the Battle of Nancy (1477). By 1524/25 at the latest, Jacques Bachot was back in Troyes. The city named a street after him.
Investigations were made as to whether Jacques Bachot could be associated with the Master of Chaource , also known as Master of Saint Martha, who is proven in the Champagne region . This hypothesis remains controversial.
Furthermore, there is so far no evidence of a possible relationship between Jacques Bachot and the sculptors Marc Bachot (active from 1517 to 1540) and Yvon Bachot (of Flemish origin, active from 1524 to 1534), who were also active in Troyes at the same time .
plant
The versatility of Jacques Bachot's activities, the fact that the guild members chose him as their representative and, last but not least, the rank of his clients and the amount of his wages as shown in the construction works bills suggest that he was one of the most important among the last Gothic sculptors in that was champagne. Nevertheless, his work can only be made accessible today by studying early sources and none of his sculptures have yet been secured.
The "Belle Croix" cross
In 1493 Jacques Bachot is mentioned as one of the sculptors of the monumental cross made of gilded bronze, donated in 1484 by the Brotherhood De la Croix and named after it Belle-Croix, over 11 m high and weighing around 4,000 kg the square in front of today's Troyes Town Hall. The joint work, the overall concept of which is attributed to Henri le Sarrurier and in which, in addition to Bachot, the sculptors Nicolas Halins and Nicolas II. Cordonnier as well as the painters Jacquet Cordonnier , Guillaume Passot , Jean Copain and Pierre Camus , is known from a sketch. It consisted of a pedestal adorned with the figures of nine minor prophets, above which a group of sculptures with the figures of Mary, John and Mary Magdalene rose. From the center of the group a large, gilded bronze crucifix overlaid with a canopy rose up. Jacques Bachot and Nicolas II. Cordonnier made the casting models for the decorative parts of the canopy. The plant was overturned and melted down during the French Revolution in 1793.
Tomb of Henry of Lorraine
Bachot designed and created this, intended for his client, and the tomb listed below during his first stay in Lorraine (1495–1504). It consisted of a large marble shrine decorated with figures of saints and a bronze portrait made by Henri Costerel, presumably based on a design by Bachot. The tomb stood in the collegiate church of St. Laurent and was destroyed during the French Revolution when the twelve members of the Revolutionary Commission of Joinville, after the beheading of Philippe Égalité (November 5, 1793), had his castle looted and demolished by a gang of sansculottes to enrich oneself with the booty.
Tomb of Ferry II of Vaudémont and his wife
Bishop Heinrich von Metz also commissioned the tomb for his late brother Ferry or Friedrich II († 1470), Count of Vaudémont , Lord of Joinville and his wife Jolande von Anjou († 1476) from Bachot during the same period which also had a chiseled base, but in contrast to the episcopal monument, it did not have a bronze figure, but rather the marble figures of the deceased lying on a flat plate. Like those mentioned above, this work fell victim to the revolutionaries' craze for destruction.
Statues of saints
Thanks to the research and publications of the painter Anne-François Arnaud (1787–1846), Bachot is also known as the creator of a Pietà and several statues of saints that are now lost. Arnaud was appointed as an art teacher and director at the École de dessin in Troyes and later appointed Inspecteur des monuments historiques (inspector of historical monuments). In memory of the events of the revolution that he experienced as a child, he and his students carried out a comprehensive inventory in order to record the works of art in Troyes and the surrounding area and to search for lost works. The location of the following statues of saints, verifiably created by Bachot, could not be clarified to this day:
- Statue of Peter (1505, lost), for Troyes Cathedral
- Statue of the Virgin Mary (lost after 1504/05) for the Church of St. Pantaléon in Troyes
- Pietà (1506/07, lost), for the church of St. Jean in Troyes
- Statue of the Virgin Mary (around 1524/25, lost), for the Church of St. Nicolas in Troyes
literature
- Anne François Arnaud: Antiquités de la ville de Troyes et vues pittoresques de ses environs avec des descriptions historiques , Troyes, 1823
- Anne-François Arnaud: Notice sur les sculptures, tableaux et objets d'art qui existent dans les églises de la ville de Troyes , In: Annuaire de l'Aube 11, 1834, pp. 211-220
- Heinz-Hermann Arnhold : The sculptures in Troyes and in southern Champagne between 1480 and 1540: style-critical observations on the master of Chaource and his circle , dissertation, Freiburg im Breisgau, September 1992, Albert-Ludwigs-University ( online pdf)
- Jacques Baudoin: La sculpture flamboyante en Champagne-Lorraine , 1991, Nonette
- Nathalis Rondot: Les sculpteurs de Troyes au XIVe et au XVe siècle . In: Revue de l'art français 3e série, 3, 1887
Individual evidence
- ↑ See Jacques Boudoin and Arnhold, p. 41
- ↑ See Arnaud, 1823, Fig. 11 and Arnhold, pp. 83/84
- ↑ See Arnaud, 1823, and Arnhold, p. 10
- ↑ See Nathalis Rondot, 1887, pp. 65-87
personal data | |
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SURNAME | Bachot, Jacques |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French sculptor of the late Gothic period |
DATE OF BIRTH | before 1493 |
DATE OF DEATH | after 1526 |