He began his career at the age of fourteen, carving the elaborate wooden ornament of the galleys built in the Marseille shipyards.

[3] In 1640, taking his tools with him, he departed Marseille by sea to Livorno, Italy and then to Florence in search of an atelier which would employ him as a carver or painter.

He carved some decorative panels in Florence, and then, with a good recommendation from his employer, and samples of his paintings, he went to Rome and presented himself to the painter Pietro da Cortona, one of the early masters of the Baroque style.

[5] After three years with da Cortona in Rome, he returned to Marseille, bringing with him the decorative tastes of the Italian Baroque.

In Livorno, he had made drawings of the highly-ornamented baroque decoration of Tuscan galleys and warships, as well as designs of imaginary ships painted by Cortona for his ceilings.

[7] He was recognized as a painter but still poorly paid; In 1653, he was commissioned by the Brotherhood of Corpus Domini to make two large paintings, The Baptism of Clovis and the Baptism of Constantine (now in the Marseille Museum of Art), for a total of one hundred forty livres, a very small amount for the time and amount of the work.

In 1655, he received his first important commission for the sculptural decoration of the entrance of the Hôtel de Ville in Toulon; he produced a porch supported by muscular atlantes, still in existence on a new municipal building facing the port.

[8][5] His reputation spread beyond Provence; he was invited to Paris and received a commission from a nobleman named Girardin for two statues, one representing Hercules and the other the Earth and Janus, for a chateau in Normandy.

His major works during this period were two monumental statues for the pillars of the church of Santa Maria di Carignano, representing Saint Sebastian and Bishop Alexander Paoli.

[13] He also made a notable statue, The Immaculate Conception, for the French patron Emmanuel Brignole, for the chapel of an Albergo in Genoa.

He was offered the position chief of decoration for French warships, but before accepting he sent a list of his demands to Colbert; among others, he insisted on being considered an officer, not a worker; and to have final authority for designs, over that of the King's official artists, the painter Charles Le Brun and the royal sculptor François Girardon.

Colbert gave Girardon, not Puget, the commission to decorate the Royal Louis, the major new warship of the French fleet.

In addition, he designed town houses in Aix-en-Provence and several municipal buildings in Marseille, including the fish market (still in place) and the La Vieille Charité, originally a home for beggars and the indigent, now a cultural center.

Clairville changed all of the Puget's plans, removed decoration he considered unnecessary, and rejected his elegant new headquarters building.

At the end of 1669, Puget took a leave of absence and departed the dockyards for his traditional sanctuary, Genoa, where he made a series of works, including The Virgin (1670), now in the oratory of the Church of Saint Philippe de Néri.

He also learned that, upon the instructions of Colbert, any work he did had to be approved at higher levels by Le Brun and the senior sculptors in Paris.

[18] He also created an ornate sculptural plaque with the coat of arms of the King to decorate the facade of the Hôtel de Ville.

[19] He designed a new fish market, completed in 1672, which is still in use, and La Vieille Charité, begun in 1679, originally a home for beggars and the indigent, now a cultural center.

Illustrating a story by Ovid, it depicts the moment when Milon de Croton, a celebrated warrior but now elderly and weak, is attacked by a lion.

[21] Colbert died the following year and was replaced by as superintendent of royal buildings by François-Michel le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois.

[22] In 1665, he proposed an even more ambitious commission, to design a new city square next to the port of Marseille, with, as the centerpiece, a monumental equestrian statue of Louis XIV, facing the harbor.

He sculpted a large marble group of the Virgin and Child for the church of Lorgues and created a monumental wooden retable still in place, for Toulon Cathedral.