Jean-Jacques Caffieri

He designed the fine rampe d'escalier which still adorns the Palais Royal.

He made a name with his busts of Pierre Corneille and Jean Racine for the foyer of the Comédie Française.

He was born in Paris and came from a family of sculptors from Italy, who had moved to France during cardinal Mazarin's regency.

A pensionary at the Villa Medici in Rome from 1749 to 1753, as well as a student of François Lemoyne, he joined the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in France in 1757.

He produced bust or portraits of many great men, notably Pierre Corneille, Thomas Corneille, Philippe Quinault, Jean de la Fontaine and Jean-Philippe Rameau, as well as the monument to Richard Montgomery in St. Paul's Chapel in New York City.

Jean-Jacques Caffieri by Adolf Ulrik Wertmüller , 1784 ( Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ) - behind Caffieri is a reduced version of his statue of Pierre Corneille, from a series of the "Great Men of France."