Ligier Richier
Numerous legends surround the life of the “Master of St. Mihiel.” The only son of Jean Richier, a master-sculptor, he was born at St. Mihiel about 1500. Brought up as a Catholic, he was converted to Calvinism about 1560. There is a legend that Michael Angelo came to St. Mihiel, admired the work of the boy Ligier Richier, and took him to Rome; but it is known that Michael Angelo never visited Lorraine.
Ligier Richier, not being able to carry out his commissions single-handed, gathered around him apprentices and companions, who have been called his brothers. It is true that he had a son (Gerald) in 1534, and that the latter worked in his father’s studio, and had in his turn five sons, also sculptors, who settled in Nancy, Metz, Lyons and Grenoble. In 1764, in consequence of the persecution of the Protestants, he settled in Geneva, where he died about 1567.
Numerous groups of sacred figures, scattered over this district, attest the happy skill of Ligier Richier: a reredos of many-coloured stone in the church at Hattonchâtel (p. [38]); Christ Crucified between the Virgin and St. John, in the church at Génicourt, on the road from Verdun to St. Mihiel; Group of Notre Dame-de-Pitié, in the Sacré-Cœur Chapel of the church at Etain; a Calvary (six statues of wood variously coloured) in the chapel of the new cemetery at Briey; a large Christ carrying the Cross in the Chapel of Notre-Dame-de-Pitié in the Church of St. Laurent, at Pont-à-Mousson (p. [92]); and lastly, in St. Mihiel itself, two of his masterpieces: “The Swooning Virgin,” in the church of St. Mihiel (p. [67]) and the important group, “The Sepulchre” in the Church of St. Etienne (p. [56]).
ST. ETIENNE’S CHURCH
Renaissance Bas-relief in St. Joseph’s Chapel.