MILHOMME, François-Dominique-Aimé - b. 1758 Valenciennes, d. 1823 Paris

French sculptor. He was trained in the Valenciennes studio of the local sculptor Pierre-Joseph Gillet and later became the pupil in Paris of André-Jean Lebrun and Christophe-Gabriel Allegrain. In the 1790s, during the French Revolution, he executed decorative sculpture and also produced models for the goldsmith Robert Joseph Auguste or his son Henry Auguste.

In 1801, at the age of 43, he won the Prix de Rome with the bas-relief Caius Gracchus Leaving his Wife Licinia to Dispute in the Forum with the Consul Opimius (plaster; untraced). He shared the prize with Joseph-Charles Marin. His herm bust of Andromache Mourning Hector (tinted plaster, 1800; Paris, Louvre) reveals a delicate Neoclassical sensibility that was developed during his years at the Académie de France in Rome after 1802 to 1809. During this period he produced his finest works, including a statue of Psyche Abandoned by Cupid (marble, 1806; Compiègne, Château), in which a form derived from antique sculpture was given a recognizably modern sentiment, and a colossal seated statue of General Lazare Hoche (marble, 1808; Versailles, Château) based on the Ludovisi Mars (Rome, Museo Nazionale Romano), in which the heroic nudity of the original is perhaps a little incongruous for an official monument.

On his return to Paris in 1809 he exhibited numerous portrait busts, both contemporary and historical, such as those of the actor François-Joseph Talma (exhibited Salon 1812; untraced) and of Henry IV (plaster, exhibited Salon 1814; untraced). He also executed a small number of full-length statues, including an unusual one of Jean-Baptiste Colbert (marble, 1820; Versailles, Château). He made models for several monuments that were not executed. Among those large-scale works that were carried out is the impressive figure of Sorrow (marble, 1816) for the tomb of Pierre Gareau in Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris.

Sorrow, Tomb of Pierre Gareau

The P�re-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, opened in 1804, was soon covered with monuments and these, together with the beauty of the site and the many plants and shrubs surrounding the tombs, made it during the romantic period a popular resort on half-days and holidays.

Under the Ancien R�gime, people sought to ensure their salvation by endowing foundations; in the nineteenth century, their successors were anxious above all that their memory should not die, oblivion being in their eyes ultimate death. The decree law of 1804, followed by the creation of the big cemeteries outside the city walls, was an expression of this new materialistic form of respect for the dead and guaranteed the success of the sale of burial plots in perpetuity and monuments designed to preserve - and extol - the memory of the deceased.

In keeping with this trend, images depicting Death were seldom placed in cemeteries. On the other hand, the representation of Grief, am indirect way of paying tribute to the dead, is a favourite theme very much in evidence in funerary sculpture, expressed sometimes in allegorical, sometimes in narrative form. As early as 1816 Milhomme created a fine figure expressing the sorrow of the widow and six children of Pierre Gareau, killed in an accident.

The Milhomme figure begot many more of the same kind, but the scenes of affliction came to an end with the years 1820-25.