Louis Royer (1793–1868), also Lodewyk Royer, was a Flemish sculptor who worked in the Netherlands where he received many commissions from the royal family and for public statues.
He was born in Mechelen where he first studied at the local Academy and from 1810 in the studio of Jan Frans van Geel. After studying in Paris for a year, he went to live in Amsterdam in 1820. At the time what is now Belgium and the Netherlands were united in one kingdom under the rule of the Dutch. In 1823 he was the first sculptor to win the Dutch version of the Dutch Prix de Rome, a prize that was re-instituted by King William I in 1817.[1][2] The Prix allowed Royer to study in Rome where he came under classicist influences.
He worked in an area close to the Spanish Steps where he must have been in contact with Bertel Thorvaldsen and the studio of Antonio Canova, who was already deceased but whose workshop with his pupils was still operational. While in Rome, Royers experienced financial difficulties because of the problems of the commission which awarded him the Dutch Prix de Rome and the bankruptcy of his patron, the Amsterdam stockbroker A.B. Roothaan. Despite these problems, Royer remained very productive, and only found time to travel once, to Naples. In Rome he sculpted a portrait of his friend, the painter Cornelis Kruseman. He gained a lot of admiration for his portrait of Pope Leo XII, whom he portrayed from life.[1][3]
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