b. 1743 Paris, d. 1809 Paris
sculptor
French

French sculptor Simon-Louis Boizot guided his career up a ladder of academic credentials and institutional positions during the tumultuous period of the late 1770s. A first-rate craftsman, a gifted designer, and son of one of the designers at the Gobelins tapestry factory, Boizot studied at the Académie Royale in Paris and in Rome as the winner of the Prix de Rome in 1762. After being received as a full member of the Académie Royale in 1778, he exhibited regularly at the Paris Salon until 1800.Boizot worked primarily with small-scale and decorative sculpture, designing pieces such as gilt bronze clocks, caryatids for a chimneypiece at the Château de Fontainebleau, ornamental centerpieces, and even a toilet seat for the Comtesse du Nord. As artistic director of the sculpture studio at the Sèvres porcelain manufactory beginning in 1773, he oversaw the design of more than 150 models reproduced in biscuit porcelain, including official portrait busts of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette.

During the French Revolution, which he supported, Boizot was an advocate for the preservation of historical monuments through his role in the Commission des Monuments. Although he had difficulty adapting to the Republican-favored Neoclassical style, he still received commissions for public monuments.