 He won the second prize for sculpture in 1791 with "Pericles coming to visit Anaxagoras", and the first prize for sculpture (Prix de Rome) in 1803 for "Ulysses recognising his nurse Eurycleia", but the Napoleonic Wars prevented him setting out for Rome for his stay at the Villa Medici.He and François Rude were two of the thirty sculptors charged with the sculpture of the colonne de la Grande Armée on place Vendôme in Paris.He was an expert consultant on the restoration of the bas-relief of the pediment of the Panthéon de Paris, realised by David d'Angers in 1830.