Pierre Puget (1620-94)-as all his eighteenth-century biographers agreeexcelled in the ornamentation of vessels. In his biographical notice of 1702, Florent Le Conte underlined the role played by the sculptor in creating a new style of decoration in which ornamental richness was perfectly and harmoniously combined, with 'sound construction', that is to say, technical virtuosity: It can be said to his glory that the ships are indebted to his conduct and to his manner, the sound construction and the superb decoration of painting and sculpture which he knew how to use to enrich them; he made wash drawings of them, with a charming finish, and models with such verisimilitude, that they won the admiration of his superiors. 1 However, the literature which devotes more than a few lines to this activity is extremely rare. The significant period concerning Pierre Puget's experience in this field, from 1668 to 1679, when he was appointed master carver to the Toulon arsenal by King Louis XIV, is often neglected in biographical accounts of his career in favour of two more anecdotal episodes, probably considered more suitable for the making of the sculptor's reputation. The first of these relates to Puget's childhood, when he is supposed to have created a decorative scheme for a galley on his own, a sign of his early virtuosity. The second involved the decoration of the ship La Reine which Puget may have designed in 1646 and by which, according to his biographers, he would have revolutionized European naval decoration by inventing 'those fine galleries which foreigners admired and tried to imitate'. 2 During the glittering career of this 'universal man', 3 painter, sculptor and architect, whom people liked to compare to Michelangelo, 4 the embellishment of royal vessels-works in wood and thus by essence ephemeral-could seem of secondary importance. 'We will not deal with all the works executed by Puget since his return to his homeland; we will only choose the most remarkable', 5 wrote Abbé Fontenai in 1782 in order to justify dealing only with the large-scale works in marble carried out for Louis XIV: Milo of Croton and the relief Alexander and Diogenes. 6 We have to wait for the nineteenth century and the examination of naval archives for Pierre Puget's activity as a decorator of ships to begin to be addressed. 7 The years 1668-79 would be crucial for the artist's reception. The disagreements that appeared to occur between Puget and Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-83), Secretary of State of the Navy, the first of those clashes being about the decoration of ships, have helped to revise our historiographical