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(2) Christophe-Gabriel Allegrain
(b Paris, 8 Oct 1710; d Paris, 17 April 1795). Sculptor, the grandson of (1) Etienne Allegrain. He was a pupil of one Martin, an ornamental sculptor, and by his first marriage, in 1733, became brother-in-law to Jean-Baptiste Pigalle. He was accepted (agréé) by the Académie Royale in 1748 and received (reçu) as a full member in 1751 on presentation of the statuette Narcissus Gazing at his Reflection in the Water (plaster, exh. Salon 1747; marble, exh. Salon 1753; probably destr. 1871 but known in particular from a drawing by Joseph Nollekens, Oxford, Ashmolean). His earlier career was dominated by the relationship with Pigalle, with whom he seems to have collaborated, probably in a subordinate capacity, on monuments including the mausoleum of the Maréchal de Saxe (marble, designed 1753; Strasbourg, St Thomas) and the monument to Louis XV for the Place Royale, Reims (bronze, completed 1765; partially destr.). Other works were executed to the designs of others, such as the stone female statue, the Butter-churner (untraced; a Sèvres statuette modelled by Jean-Baptiste Defernex in 1754 may represent this work; Sèvres, Mus. N. Cér.), commissioned in 1753 by Mme de Pompadour for her dairy at the château of Crécy and based on a drawing by François Boucher. His own talents and limitations in the field of portrait sculpture and funerary art can be appreciated in the monument to Charles-Joseph de Pollinchove (marble, set up 1763) in the church of St Pierre, Douai.
Part of the Allegrain family
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