François Joseph Bosio

Baron François Joseph Bosio (19 March 1768 – 29 July 1845) was a Monegasque sculptor who achieved distinction in the first quarter of the nineteenth century with his work for Napoleon and for the restored French monarchy.

After brief service in the Revolutionary army he lived in Florence, Rome and Naples, providing sculpture for churches under the French hegemony in Italy in the 1790s.

He was recruited by Dominique Vivant Denon in 1808 to make bas-reliefs for the monumental column in the Place Vendôme in Paris and also to serve as portrait sculptor to Emperor Napoleon I and his family.

It was in this capacity that he produced some of his finest work, notably marble portrait busts of the Empress Josephine, which was also modelled in biscuit Sèvres porcelain, and of Queen Hortense (about 1810), which was also cast in bronze by Ravrio.

In 1828, Bosio saw his grandiose equestrian sculpture of Louis XIV erected in the Place des Victoires in Paris and was made an Officier of the Légion d'honneur.