Background
Foyatier was the child of a family of modest means (his father was a weaver and later a farmer at Bezin, a hamlet near Bussières, Loire).
Foyatier was the child of a family of modest means (his father was a weaver and later a farmer at Bezin, a hamlet near Bussières, Loire).
École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts.
He started by working on religious figures, while taking a design course at Lyon. In 1817, he entered the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts ("National Higher School for Arts and Crafts") 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.
At the Villa Médicis he created the mould for his piece Spartacus, which is very well known.
A Royal Command of 1828 for a production in marble made him famous. After a brilliant career as a sculptor and painter, he died on 19 November 1863 and is buried in the Petit-Clamart cemetery in a suburb of Paris.
Some of Foyatier"s works have been lost. Several were melted down during the Second World War.
He was the father of the sculptor Jules Blanchard.
Several towns have named streets after him:
Paris: The Rue Foyatier in 18th arrondissement, a set of flights of steps leading to the Sacré-Cœur Basilica, alongside the Montmartre funicular. Roanne
Saint-Étienne
and some smaller communes in the Loire department:
Bussières, a square at the edge of the village in the Pouilly-lès-Feurs direction.