Jacques Prou was a French Academic Baroque

Baroque

The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

 sculptor, a product of the Academy system overseen by Charles Le Brun

Charles Le Brun

Charles Le Brun , a French painter and art theorist, became the all-powerful, peerless master of 17th-century French art.-Biography:-Early life and training:...

. Trained in the Academy school in Paris,. he spent four years (1676-80) refining his style at the French Academy in Rome

French Academy in Rome

The French Academy in Rome is an Academy located in the Villa Medici, within the Villa Borghese, on the Pincio in Rome, Italy.-History:...

, then returned to Paris to become a member of the team of the Bâtiments du Roi

Bâtiments du Roi

The Bâtiments du Roi was a division of Department of the household of the Kings of France in France under the Ancien Régime. It was responsible for building works at the King's residences in and around Paris.-History:...

from 1681, providing sculpture for Versailles

Palace of Versailles

The Palace of Versailles , or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France. In French it is the Château de Versailles....

 in the atelier of Jean-Baptiste Tuby

Jean-Baptiste Tuby

Jean-Baptiste Tuby was a French sculptor of Italian origins. He was born in Rome in 1635 and died in Paris in 1700. He is most renowned for the Fountain of Apollo at Versailles.-External links:* Fountain of Apollo at Versailles...

, whose daughter he married. He was received as a full member of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1682, presenting as his reception piece a bas-relief of Sculpture consulting Painting over the portrait of Louis XIV, now at the Musée du Louvre, which reveals his concern for surface textures adapted from the dominant art, painting At Versailles he became closely associated in projects for fountains and emblemmatic decorative sculpture with Antoine Coysevox

Antoine Coysevox

Charles Antoine Coysevox , French sculptor, was born at Lyon, and belonged to a family which had emigrated from Spain...

, notably in the Escalier des princes, the salon opening onto it, and the Salon de la Guerre..

For Versailles he carved a vase on the theme The Infant Mars, following a design from the office of Jules Hardouin-Mansart. His work for Marly

Château de Marly

The Château de Marly was a relatively small French royal residence located in what has become Marly-le-Roi, the commune that existed at the edge of the royal park. The town that originally grew up to service the château is now a dormitory community for Paris....

, 1683-84 and 1705, has disappeared.

His marble memorial portrait bust of the recently-deceased Philippe de France, duc d'Orléans

Philippe I, Duke of Orléans

Philippe of France was the youngest son of Louis XIII of France and his queen consort Anne of Austria. His older brother was the famous Louis XIV, le roi soleil. Styled Duke of Anjou from birth, Philippe became Duke of Orléans upon the death of his uncle Gaston, Duke of Orléans...

, only brother of Louis XIV

Louis XIV of France

Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...

, was exhibited at the Paris salon

Paris Salon

The Salon , or rarely Paris Salon , beginning in 1725 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. Between 1748–1890 it was the greatest annual or biannual art event in the Western world...

of 1704.