Editing Pierre Puget (section)

===Versailles - Milon of Croton===
Puget had still not broken into the exclusive group of sculptors who were receiving royal commissions for the statuary of the new gardens of Versailles. He still possessed several blocks of fine marble from Genoa,  In 1671 he sent to Colbert designs for two large-scale statues, ''[[Milon of Croton]]'' (now in the Louvre) and the [[bas-relief]] ''Alexander and Diogenes''  (1685, now in the Louvre).  Colbert disliked Puget's personality but admired his skill; on  13 May 1672, he offered Puget a commission to make the two statues.{{Sfn|Lagrange|1868|p=182}} Puget was occupied with his tasks for the city of Marseille, and did not begin work until 1672. The impatient Colbert wrote to Puget, demanding a report on the statue, and observing that the marble belonged not to Puget, but to the royal government. Puget worked furiously on Milon.  However, in 1681, six years after sending the designs, the statue was still not finished;  it was finally completed in August, 1682.

Puget's [[Milon of Croton]] (1682) is a monumental work, nearly three meters high, is one of his most dramatic and expressive works.  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. His expression at the moment the lion claws Milon's is distorted by pain, and is full of pathos.{{Sfn|Geese|2015|p=304}}  This work was satisfactory to Colbert, was purchased by the royal government, and given a prominent place in the Gardens of Versailles. Puget, in the meantime, had begun on another monumental statue for Versailles, of [[Andromeda (mythology)|Andromeda]].{{Sfn|Lagrange|1868|pp=182, 194}}

Colbert died the following year and was replaced by as superintendent of royal buildings by [[François-Michel le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois]].  A month after Colbert's death, Louvois wrote to Puget for a report on other works that Puget was making, and asking how old he was. Puget responded that he was sixty years old and that he was working with great enthusiasm on his monumental statue of Perseus Andromeda (completed 1684, now in the Louvre) and the [[bas-relief]] ''Alexander and Diogenes''  (completed 1685, the Louvre). "I was raised making great works..." Puget wrote to Louvois, "The marble trembles before me, no matter how large it is." The two works were completed, loaded on ships in Toulon, and were placed in the gardens of Versailles.{{Sfn|Lagrange|1868|p=198}}
<gallery mode="packed" heights="200">
File:Louvre statue DSC00917.jpg|Milo of Croton (the Louvre)
Image:Perseus Andromeda Puget Louvre MR2076.jpg|''Perseus and Andromeda'', the Louvre
File:Puget - Diogenes Alexander Louvre.jpg|sculpted plaque of Diogenes and Alexander the Great, the Louvre (1692)
</gallery>