Heurtaut Nicolas

Born in Paris in 1720, dead in 1771. Son of Claude Heurtaut, sculptor, and Marie-Charlotte Lhorloger.
He was received master sculptor at the Academy of Saint-Luc in 1742, and got registered in the following October. Few months before, he got married with the cabinet-maker Guillaume-Antoine Destrume’s daughter, Marie-Geneviève. From 1742 to 1753, Nicolas Heurtaut worked as a seat-sculptor, rue de Cléry, for the cabinet-makers Tilliard, Séné and probably Avisse and Saint-Georges.

In 1753, he became master cabinet-maker, registered in December in 1755. Since 1753, he worked rue de Bourbon as seat-sculptor and cabinet-maker. He used to work with four tapestry-merchants: Pierre Hossard, Lefèvre, Barthélémy Morin and the famous François Proquez.

He did not work for the King but had a very distinguished clientele: Jean-Nicolas de Boullogne, le Bailly de Fleury, the chevalier de Bonneuil, the ducks Gesvres, de Tresmes, de Luxembourg and de la Rochefoucauld, the marquis de Genlis, de Soupire and de Villarceaux, the Comte de Jaucourt, the comtesse de Séran, monseigneur de Saint-Aulaire, the duchesse d’Enville and M. de Bussy.

Heurtaut made seats in reaction to the rocaille: the symmetrical rocaille. He participated to the comeback of classicism and his pieces ‘transition’, not very well-known, are one of the best interesting with the ones of Louis Delanois.