Nicolas Pineau (1684-1754)

"Nicolas Pineau (1684–1754) was a French carver and ornamental designer, one of the leaders who initiated the exuberant style of the French rocaille or Rococo. He worked in St. Petersburg and Paris.

Pineau, the son of the carver Jean-Baptiste Pineau (died 1694), who appears in the Bâtiments du Roi accounts for Versailles and elsewhere from 1680, was the outstanding talent among those designers and craftsmen who accompanied Alexandre Le Blond to St. Petersburg in 1716. His Russian contracts were for designing and carving "doors, chimney pieces, frames, table frames and other ornaments and designs". Le Blond's premature death in 1719 left Pineau the leading French decorative artist in Russia, called upon for a variety of decorations and even to give architectural designs. His chief work in Russia is the design and carving of the Grand Cabinet of Peter the Great in Peterhof, which the Tsar showed, newly complete, in August 1721. Unlike many works by French artists abroad, its distribution is entirely French, featuring central opposed mirrors over low chimneypieces, flanked by carved panels and double doors. The richly carved panels in varying relief with bold certal cartouches and military trophies follow surviving drawings by Pineau." - (Wikipedia (en) 30.01.2021)