Pierre Paul Puget (16 October 1620 – 2 December 1694) was a French Baroque painter, sculptor, architect and engineer. His sculpture expressed emotion, pathos and drama, setting it apart from the more classical and academic sculpture of the Style Louis XIV. Biography Pierre Paul Puget was born on 16 October 1620 at the home of his father, a stone mason, in the working-class neighborhood of Panier, in Marseille. As his two older brothers were trained as stone masons, he was trained as a woodcarver. He began his career at the age of fourteen, carving the elaborate wooden ornament of the galleys built in the Marseille shipyards. He also showed talent as a painter. Italy In 1640, at the age of eighteen, taking his tools with him, he departed Marseille by sea to Livorno, Italy and then to Florence in search of an atelier which would employ him as a carver or painter. He carved some decorative panels in Florence, and then, with a good recommendation from his employer, and samples of his paintings, he went to Rome and presented himself to the painter Pietro da Cortona, one of the early masters of the Baroque style. He assisted Da Cortona in painting of the lavish ceilings of the Palazzo Barberini in Rome and the Palazzo Pitti at Florence. Marseille and Toulon After three years with da Cortona in Rome, he returned to Marseille, bringing with him the decorative tastes of the Italian Baroque. In Livorno he had made drawings of the highly-ornamented baroque decoration of Tuscan galleys and warships, as well as designs of imaginary ships painted by Cortona for his ceilings. He showed these to Jean Armand de Maillé-Brézé, Grand Admiral of the French fleet, and was given a commission to design a carved medallion for the stern of a new French warship, named for the Queen, Anne of Austria. The death of the Grand Admiral in 1646 ended his first work in naval decoration. He began painting, mostly religious works, in the style of Annibale Carracci and Rubens. He also received a commission in 1649 to make several public fountains for new squares in Toulon. In 1652 he was commissioned to make baptismal fonts for the Marseille cathedral. From 1662 to 1665 he made a series of paintings for the Cathedral of Marseille. He was recognized as a painter but still poorly paid; In 1653 he was commissioned by